


On Such A Winter's Day

by AvocadoLove



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempted Kidnapping, Evil Plans, Kid Fic, Kid Tony Stark, Kidnapping, M/M, Parent Bucky Barnes, Parent Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-17
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-02-05 02:13:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 26,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1801651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvocadoLove/pseuds/AvocadoLove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Forty years after bringing the plane down into the Arctic, Steve Rogers wakes to find a man, code named Winter Soldier, has killed Howard Stark and kidnapped his four-year-old son.</p><p>Steve's mission to bring Tony home gets... complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [All The Leaves Are Brown (And the sky is gray)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1609838) by [AvocadoLove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvocadoLove/pseuds/AvocadoLove). 



> This is an AU to the already completed fic All The Leaves Are Brown (And the sky is gray) where Winter Soldier Bucky raises Tony as his own son. 
> 
> A lot of people asked what would happen if Bucky AND Steve had ended up raising Tony. So here you are :). This fic will be more relationship focused than Leaves Are Brown.

Steve stares at the charred, twisted metal frame of a Rolls Royce. Summer brown weeds and brush have grown up and through where the seats would have been. When Steve scuffs his shoe on the ground he sees ash underneath the top layer of soil.

"The local PD removed the bodies after the fire was put out," Nick Fury says dispassionately. "Or what was left of them. We had a ceremony. Very tasteful."

Hands stuffed in his pockets, Steve forces himself to nod. He gazes at the place where his friend died. An entire family snuffed out like a candlelight. Howard deserved so much better. Steve's certain if he'd been woken just three years earlier, this wouldn't have happened. He shoves down his rising grief and turns to Fury. "Why'd you bring me here?"

Nick Fury's good eye drifts over the remains of the wreckage. "Because the funeral was for three, but no one ever found Howard and Maria's son, Cap, and there should have been something. A skull, some teeth, some evidence."

"What happened to him?"

"That's the 64,000 dollar question."

Steve frowns, not quite understanding.

Fury walks a slow circuit around the twisted car frame. "Anthony Stark had just turned four-years-old. He could have survived the crash, become scared by the fire that got started by the wreck, ran off, but got swallowed in it." He looks around at the thick, woody vegetation that has grown back in the last three years. "If that's the case, his remains would be long gone."

Steve's stomach does a slow roll, picturing it all too clear. Howard's child, scared and alone. It's almost too terrible to bear. But even though he hasn't known Fury for more than a few weeks, he's already figured out the man doesn't speak without cause. "Or?"

Fury meets his gaze across the wreckage. "By all reports, Anthony had inherited his mother's _and_ father's intelligence, and more. Every aptitude test scored him through the roof. You should have heard how Howard went on about him. He was already on Shield watch lists at two-years-old. By the time he grew up--" Fury breaks off and shakes his head.

"Children still panic, director. Especially by a fire. If he didn't parish in the crash, he watched his..." Steve swallows, "parents die."

"And I believed so too, until my own analysts picked up a rash of car thefts in this area. Put side-by-side, they make a trail from here to the Mexican border."

Steve frowns. "You think someone took Anthony?"

Fury shrugs. "It's the best case scenario we've got. As grim at it is, I'd rather believe someone murdered his parents and kidnapped their son, than him dying in a fire."

Steve, would, too. But what would anyone want with a child that young?

"You asked to be let out in the world," Fury continues. "If you want to investigate this -- it's yours."

Steve lets out a long breath. He tastes ash on his tongue, and he doesn't think it's his imagination. "Of course."


	2. Chapter 2

Steve spends the next few days prior to the mission going through Howard's personal effects, learning what he can about Anthony Stark. There are few family photos. Howard looks old in them -- Streaks of gray from his temples, and hard lines around his mouth and eyes. His wife is dark and beautiful and shockingly young. She stands by his side as Howard balances their young son on his knee.

A lump grows in Steve's throat. He places the framed photograph on a side table along with a picture Shield had dug up of the assembled Commandos. The glass is smudged where Steve has touched over Bucky's face.

Gazing at the two photos side-by-side, Steve feels too many flavors of grief to stand. He looks away.

Howard had loved technology to the end. Prior to the accident, he had developed a device called a 'VCR' that convert movie reels into a sort of tape that could be played on a home television. Some of the Shield agents say it might catch onto the public soon.

It takes an hour for Steve to suss out all the little audio/video cords and wires to make the device work. Finally, he inserts the first Stark family tape and presses play.

And there is Howard at a summer barbecue, speaking and laughing with some family friends and Stark Industries board members -- and oh, there's Peggy with gray in her hair, but lovely as ever. Her husband on one arm. It hurts, but Steve smiles through it. He and Peg had an understanding in the war -- he never told her about Bucky, but he knew she had her suspicions.  She's moved on after he was frozen, and he's happy for her.

It takes ten full minutes before he sees a peep of Anthony. Even then, it's only glimpses of the boy here and there -- an active toddler being herded by a harassed looking butler. The boy runs wild around and through adult legs before Howard tells his help that it's time for the boy to be put to bed. The sun is still up.

Steve switches to another video -- this one of Christmas. Anthony is three years old, and there is Howard again, speaking quietly with Maria as their son rips open a mountain of presents. Howard and Maria smile on, but there is something fixed about Howard's face. Distant. His mind is somewhere else.

To Steve's surprise, Anthony turns the box of one toy and starts reading the directions to make it work clearly and concisely from the back packaging. Whenever Anthony discovers a something he likes, he turns and chatters excitedly to the butler, showing it off.

Maria smiles distantly, and Howard checks his wristwatch.

The video switches to the Christmas dinner -- all adults at the table, house staff, and select Stark Industries board members. A sparkling glazed ham and a turkey practically as big as a house is being presented. Anthony is nowhere to be seen.

Steve turns off the film and stares for a long time at the Stark family portrait. Howard had never been that... distant when Steve knew him. The man in the video didn't seem to be the type to take special notice his son, much less brag about him to a co-worker.

It takes a long time for Steve to fall asleep that night. A nebulous sort of unease keeps him from relaxing, and he's not sure where it comes from.

 

* * *

 

 

Sometimes when Steve is fretful, his mind gives him happy dreams. 

He knows from the moment he feels the humid summer air on his face, the sway of the ferris wheel seat under him, the music of the big band kicking up their heels far below, that he's asleep. This is a memory.

It doesn't matter.

Steve's lips stretch into a grin -- he knows what day this is -- and he throws his weight forward and back along with Bucky. Their seat swings wildly under them. They are caught up at the top of the wheel -- have been for a couple minutes now -- and the best thing to do at the top was see how much they could get the seat to swing.

Bucky laughs are loud and carefree. When Steve looks at him, his eyes are shining, even in the dark.

Their gazes meet, and just like it had in real life, Steve stomach gives a swoop. It must show on his face, cause Bucky stops playing around. He leans back.

"You gonna yak?" Bucky asks, concerned.

"Naw." Though Steve's not so sure. His gut's always got butterflies lately, whenever he's close to Bucky. It's a sickness, but not in the way Bucky thinks.

Bucky's got his arm thrown across the top edge. Steve leans back against it, wishing both that the ferris wheel would move already, and wishing he could stay like this forever.

"You sure?" Bucky questions as seat settles into a gentler swing. "You're looking green."

Steve opens his eyes and Bucky's leaning in to peer at Steve. He touches Steve's jaw, turning his head. Their faces are so close, and they lock eyes again. There's a question in Bucky's gaze, and something nebulous and intense passes between them. Steve gathers up every scrap of courage he owns. He turns his head just a bit more, nudging to close the distance. Their noses bump, then Steve's lips press against Bucky's. Hesitant. Questioning.

Bucky's lips are dry. A warm spark shoots down Steve's spine all the same. He stays there for a moment. Two.

Then Bucky leans in, hand resting on Steve's waist, and Steve's touching the back of Bucky's neck to keep him in place. His fingers curling in his hair. And they're kissing. They're kissing.

Steve's the one who jerks away, shocked with himself. "Sorry! I--" But his throat's gone dry. He can't find the words.

Bucky's lips are slightly parted. His eyes dart from Steve, around to check no one saw -- but of course they couldn't. Not when they're this high up -- then back again. He clears his throat. "Ah geez, Stevie."

"I know," Steve says, shamed. He knows he's red in the face and he wonders if he jumps right now if he'll die or just break both legs. Maybe he'll wait until the ride starts moving again to chance it.

Bucky shifts again, uncomfortable. "You're my best pal," he says, and Steve inhales, bracing himself. Then Bucky catches him with his eyes. "And... I wasn't exactly pushing away."

Steve's breath catches all over again. "Yeah?"

The smile Bucky gives is sly and sort of bashful at the same time. He looks 'round again. "Yeah. I'm just glad you didn't throw up on me."

"Me too." Steve's heart is thumping so hard it almost hurts, but daringly, he grips the lapels of Bucky's shirt and reels him in close again.

 

* * *

 

 

Steve wakes with a start. The corners of his eyes are wet, and he palms away the moisture with the heel of his hand. 

His alarm is set to go off in a few hours, but he knows he won't get any sleep. He sits up, averting his gaze from the picture frames on the side table. The dream falls away from him in shreds as he rises, and he lets it go.

He can't think like this. Can't dwell, or he'll never move on. And Bucky... he would have wanted Steve to get on with life. It's hard, but he knows it for a fact.

But even with his resolve, his throat still feels a little clogged and tight. Steve takes a long, steaming shower to loosen it again.

'Sides, he'd rather dream of the ferris wheel a thousand times than the train in the alps.

 

* * *

 

Steve is assigned a senior agent to partner with him during the search. 

Jasper Sitwell is polite and competent. He helps fill in the gaps in Steve's knowledge of technology. Most importantly, he's fluent in Spanish. Steve took a semester in college for his language requirements, but it never stuck. That was before the serum.

But he picked up French easily enough during the war, and is pleased to find after a few lessons Spanish comes easily, too.

On the day they depart, Sitwell gives Steve a screw-driver sized device with a small metal suction cup on one side, a light on the other.

"It's a DNA sampler," Sitwell says, "We're operating under the assumption that Anthony Stark is alive. This end," he touches the blunt suction cup, "analyzes dead skin cells and will beep to show a match. Try it. It's harmless."

Steve presses it to the underside of his arm. There's a brief tingling feeling, but Sitwell's right. It doesn't hurt. After a moment the other end of the device flashes red, indicating no match.

Steve frowns at it. "Shield has a copy of Anthony's genetic code?"

Sitwell's smile is enigmatic. "Howard was a far-seeing man. All Shield employees are required to provide a sample, and he knew that someday his son would be working for us."

"That should have been Anthony's decision, when he was older," Steve says.

Sitwell shrugs. "It works to our benefit now."

Steve doesn't ask if Shield has a sample of his DNA. It took a few days for him to wake up after he'd been unfrozen. Plenty of time for medical staff to take what they need.

He tucks the device away, an echo of the unease he felt earlier returning. "Okay," he says. "Where do we start?"

"We found the remains of a vehicle which was abandoned near the Mexican border. The current theory is that whoever was involved used that entry point to hike out of the country. We'll start our search in the nearest border town."

Either they were going to find Anthony alive or Howard's killer, or both. Either way, Steve feels himself harden into the man he used to be -- into what he _needs_ to be to see this mission through. It's been a long time since he felt like Captain America.

Steve tucks the DNA sampler away. "Let's get started."

 

* * *

 

 

Their first big break comes two weeks into their investigation. The local villagers are hesitant to talk to outsiders, but Sitwell is an expert at blending in, and Steve is nothing but persistent. They learn of an oddity, three years back. A white man and a child around Anthony Stark's age, dirty and haggard from crossing the desert. It was unusual because while they came from the States, the man spoke Russian to the child, and Spanish to the people.

Sitwell's eyes light up, and Steve knows they are on the right track.

Steve stays behind to learn as much as he can, and to get a general description of the man, while Sitwell calls the intel to Shield.

Later that night, Steve comes across a copy of the transmission sent over teletype. Sitwell had put it to the cooking fire, but the edges smoldered, not burned. The receiving number must be to a Shield line, but Steve doesn't recognize it. And the transmission itself is in code. Steve narrows his eyes, scanning over the words. Within a few moments he has memorized them.

That night after Sitwell has gone to bed, Steve takes out his notebook and rewrites the letter from memory. It's only two lines, but it takes him nearly three hours to crack the encryption.

ASSET'S PRESENCE HAS BEEN CONFIRMED.  IN PURSUIT.

Steve frowns and glances towards Sitwell's bedroom. Anthony Stark was barely four-years-old-- seven, now, if he's still alive. Even if he is a certified genius, he is a child, not an asset.

What in the world did Shield want with him?

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys, this chapter practically gave me hives to write out. In Steve's defense, he has no idea he's being every parent's worst nightmare.

When Steve led the Howling Commandos, he'd always known -- more or less -- where the next Hydra lab was located, thanks to Steve's glance at the map in the laboratory and from what Bucky remembered.

Searching out a three-year-old cold trail is new to him.

He and Sitwell quickly learn not to trust local gossip. Their target has a specific and frustrating pattern: he would establish himself in a new location with the boy -- usually a dingy flophouse or one-room-apartment -- stay for a few days, and plant false leads. Then he would be off again.

Always moving, as if he knew he was being followed.

The only consistency are the descriptions: a white man with long, brown hair who wore long sleeved shirts and gloves, even in the hottest months. The boy, usually identified as a son or nephew, loosely fit Anthony Stark's description.

Steve tries not to look too hard around at the dank little apartments that the target had stayed in. The appliances have been long ripped out or torn up for parts. There are ominous stains on the floor. Standing in the middle of the room, Steve clenches his fists and wishes to God that Anthony hadn't been scared and afraid here.

The first few months are slow going with lots of starts and stops. Rumor always almost turned out to be false. If the target had mentioned he was heading to the west, they'd really end up south. There is no rhyme or reason. No endpoint Steve can see when he lays out the trail on paper; a crisscrossing path through South America.

This is a man on the run... but why had he bothered with Anthony in the first place? What was his long-game?

Sitwell refuses to even speculate, and something about that puts Steve off. He gets the impression Sitwell is holding back, though he can't say why or how. It's a gut feeling. He doesn't mention the 'asset' in Steve's presence. 

But it is Sitwell, who is more comfortable with technology of this day and age, who realizes their target usually steals from American and European tourists prior to their next move.

They spent a hot weekend holed up in La Paz, combing through reams and reams of theft reports for travelers checks, credit cards, and cash.

A hazy, indistinct trail emerges. And suddenly they aren't years behind their target. They are months. Then days.

 

* * *

 

 

Steve's always liked kids. He usually made a point of packing away a few sweets with him during the war, and handing them out to any little boy and girl who looked like they could use a pick-me-up. War was hard, especially on the youngest. 

(Bucky used to tease him, sometimes. Called him the Candy Man. But then again, Bucky had grown up with younger brothers and sisters, and said he'd gotten enough of kids then.)

Plus, children were a fountain of information. Once or twice, while Sitwell was stuck inside with paperwork or transmitting progress reports back to Shield, Steve would go out and talk to the neighborhood kids and young mothers. He'd usually return with baseless rumors -- the locals couldn't say where their target had gone, but they could at least confirm he had been there.

They'd had no leads for a few days and Steve's feeling cooped up. Sitwell's frowning over some report and not paying him any mind. So Steve goes out, the DNA sampler in one pocket (Sitwell insists he carry it wherever they go), a handful of hard candy in the other.

He doesn't have a destination, just walks along the winding streets, shaking his head politely when someone asks if he wants to buy something. The spices in the air and local chatter remind him vaguely of Italy in the summer, which hadn't been all that bad even with the war on.

Something bumps against his leg. A dirty and patched soccer ball. There's a pack of shrieking seven or eight year old boys nearby. Steve nudges the ball back to them and gets several shouted "Gracias" in return.

He stands off to the side and watches them play. Shoving each other, laughing, and kicking the ball artlessly in all directions. He used to play the same way, when he wasn't down and sick.

One boy stands out from the pack. There's a shade to his brown eyes that reminds him of Howard. A cocky tilt to his head. He's tanned, but the sun only lightened his hair a few shades, not darkened it.

Steve's done this before. He spends a few moments searching around until he finds a a smooth, round rock. Then he bumps it over his shoe, kicking it a few feet in the air, catching it on the side, then kicking it up again and balancing it on his toe. Casually. In a way he wouldn't have been able to dream of before the serum.

Soon he attracts a crowd of curious onlookers, most of the kids among them.

He gets a few claps and laughs as his tricks become more elaborate, and soon a few questions are thrown at him, requests to repeat a move again.

But the sun is high in the sky, and most of the children are being called in for mid-day meal or to attend chores. They drift away, but the boy who caught his eye is still there, hanging on the edge of the scattering crowd. He doesn't seem to belong to anyone.

"What's your name?" Steve asks.

"Rosendo."

"I'm Steve." He kneels down to the boy's level and pulls out a hard candy. "Do you like butterscotch?"

The boy shrugs.

"Have you seen this before?" Steve holds out the DNA sampler. The boy visibly perks, looking far more interested in the machine than in the treat.  He holds out his hand to see it, and Steve takes the opportunity.

"It works like this." He presses the end quickly against the heel of Rosendo's hand. It doesn't prick, it takes only a small sample of dead skin cells. Rosendo jerks back, looking at his hand suspiciously. Steve smiles in apology. He's done this quite a few times over the last few months, all Sitwell's suggestion.

"What does it do?" Rosendo demands, still turning over his hand as if to check for blood.

"It didn't hurt," Steve says, not answering. "See?" He holds out the candy.

Rosendo looks at him, eyes narrowed. He doesn't take the candy.

Steve's smile is more of a wince of apology. Every day, he dislikes Sitwell's methods more. "Sorry about that, Slugger. I--"

The sampler chirps in his hand. He glances down and freezes. The light is flashing green.

Steve looks up. "Anthony?"

Rosendo -- Anthony? There's no recognition in his eyes -- edges away.

"Wait--" Steve says and reaches to grab him by one skinny arm. "It's okay."

The boy lashes out with a strong kick to Steve's knee that might have knocked a grown man down if that man wasn't, well, Steve.

Anthony twists, but Steve's grip is strong. "Help!" Anthony screeches. "Dad! Help!"

He tries to kick Steve again, and so Steve has no choice but to lift the struggling boy up. "It's okay, Anthony," he says. "You're safe. I was sent to find you."

"Let me go! HELP!"

Anthony tosses his head back as if to break Steve's nose. Steve turns his head and readjusts his grip, holding Anthony's wrists in one hand, around the waist by the other. It's awkward, but it won't take him long to get back to the apartment. The important thing is to get Anthony clear--

Then something bowls into him, hard. Anthony's yanked out of his grip. A familiar voice snaps. "Go. Run!"

Steve is flung away with power that sends him rolling, skidding into an adobe wall. A shower of dust rains down over and around him, the grit getting in his eyes.

Blinking, he grains his feet, but his attacker is on him again. His vision is dust-blurred, and it's all too fast and aggressive to take in details.

Steve blocks a fist with the outside of his own arm. He knees the other man in the middle.  Through his blurred dusty vision, he sees the man hunch, but still and reach around and up-- the angle is wrong. An arm doesn't work like that--

A cold, strong grip clamps around Steve's throat. Steve reaches to pry them away, but the fingers are too hard, like metal. Instinctively, Steve strikes at the elbow. He knows his own strength, knows what it takes to dislocate joints. But his knuckles hit something has hard as steel. The hold on his throat is like a clamp, and he can't get any air. Steve twists, throws himself to the side, but he can't shake loose.

The man's on him, kneeling over him, and Steve blinks away the dust from his watering eyes.

It feels like the entire world has flipped on its end, gone completely nutso. Or he's hallucinating... or... or....

It can't possibly be him. He has longer hair, his expression twisted into hate. His eyes are so wide that the whites show around them.

Black dots gather at the edge of Steve's vision, and Steve can't hear himself, but he feels his lips form the word.

"Bucky?"

Something flickers in Bucky's eyes. His lips curl into a snarl, and his fingers release long enough for Steve to draw in one ragged, painful breath.

Then Bucky rears back and slams a fist into Steve's temple. The world sparks white. Then there's nothing.


	4. Chapter 4

 

Steve comes awake to the sounds of soft spoken Spanish.

"...and then he grabbed you?"

"Yeah," says a child, also in Spanish. Anthony's voice. "I kicked him in the knee real hard."

"Good boy," Bucky says. "Next time, aim for the nuts, too."

Anthony giggles.

Steve opens his eyes. Bucky is about ten feet away, knelt in front of Anthony. He seems like he's checking the boy over for damage, but Steve would never put so much as  a mark on him.

They're in a grubby little apartment, and the wall behind them has been torn open. The wiring pulled out. Steve flexes his arms, which have been tied behind him and to the chair he's sitting in. He has a feeling that's where the wiring went.

Bucky -- or at least the man who looks like him -- glances over at Steve's slight movement. He turns back to Anthony and speaks to him in what sounds like Russian.

Anthony shakes his head, glaring over his shoulder at Steve. But Bucky repeats the phrasing and turns the boy around, giving him a small push to the door.

Anthony mutters a reluctant, "Da". He turns, daring to stick his tongue out at Steve, before he darts for the door.

Bucky raises to his full height and stares at Steve. He's holding a vicious looking knife in his metal hand, but Steve isn't afraid. The man doesn't just look like him -- it _is_ him. The divot in his chin, the dime-sized patch where beard scruff never could grow in, the exact shade of his eyes.

"Bucky?" Steve whispers. It feels like it did before the serum, like he can't get enough air. "It's really you?"

Bucky's eyes are wide, but not as wild as they'd been before. "Who the fuck are you?" he growls, still in Spanish.

"It's me. It's Steve."

"Steve Rogers is dead."

"Me?" He lets out a breath that's half a hysterical laugh. "You're dead -- I saw you fall." He looks Bucky up and down, whole and alive. Forty years later, and he looks just like he did that day. "I tried to reach you. I should've--"

Anger flashes in Bucky's eyes. He takes a single, menacing step forward, his voice thick. "That's common knowledge, pal. What are you, a clone? This some kind of surgery to make you look like him? To bring me in?"

"Buck--"

"The Steve _I knew_ wouldn't try to nab a kid." His fingers -- metal fingers -- tighten on the knife. "You got thirty seconds to tell me something only he would know, or I'm finding out who's really under that face."

"Like what?" Steve says, "That you're my best friend since we were eight? You let me bum on your couch for three months after my mom died? That time you tried to impress Bethany Malone by eating about five cans of sardines, and you were -- you got sick for days. I had to take care of you, for once."

Bucky shakes his head, but it's not in denial. Steve flexes his arms. The wire snaps and he stands. Bucky doesn't try to stop him.

"What about the ferris wheel at Coney Island?" Steve asks, lower, holding Bucky's gaze. "You think that's common knowledge? And so many times after that -- remember the twenty-four hour leave we got in Loire? London? Hell, Bucky, I would've--"

Bucky holds up his metal hand to stop him, then glances to the shut door. He raises his voice. "I said _outside_ , Tony. Not outside the room."

Steve clearly hears an annoyed huff from the other side of the door. Then retreating footsteps as the little eavesdropper shuffles off. Steve flashes back to how Bucky's mother had the same strange sixth sense, whenever Steve and her son were up to no good.

Bucky turns back to Steve, the tilt to his head expectant, as if asking for more. But there's only one thing on Steve's mind.

His throat tightens. "I tried to reach you, but the handle broke. You died, Buck. How are you here?"

"I fell," Bucky says in English. His familiar Brooklyn accent sends a shiver down Steve's spine. "I didn't die."

Steve closes the distance between them. Bucky brings up the knife, but Steve couldn't care less. It's been too long and he thought he's lost too much. The edge of the blade touches his neck in warning as he pulls Bucky forward. And the moment their lips touch, he _knows_. The scent, the taste. It's him.

He rests one hand on the back of Bucky's neck, just like he used to, kissing with all his heart. Bucky lets out something like a sob. The knife drops with a thud on the floor, and Bucky's kissing back.

Steve clings on for a moment. He can't think, doesn't know how -- _doesn't care_ how any of this is possible. Bucky's holding him close, with strength so fierce it almost hurts. But one hand is harder, stronger than the other. Metal.

"How?" Steve demands, through their kisses. He grips Bucky's shoulders -- both of them -- and pulls back long enough to take him in. " _How?_ "

"Hydra picked me up," Bucky says. "They erased me -- took me out, stuffed the Soldier in."

That doesn't make sense to Steve, but Bucky pulls him in again, burying his face against Steve's neck, gripping him with a desperate edge.

Steve holds him close. "It's okay," he says, "I've got you."

"They told me you were dead," he says roughly against Steve's skin. "They hadn't--I was still fighting their scientists then, and they told me you took your plane down, tryin' to stop Hydra."

Fighting their scientists... That metal arm. _My God_. "I froze solid, in the arctic."

The laugh Bucky makes has a strained, hysterical edge. "Been there."

"The arctic?"

He shakes his head, then abruptly goes still. Bucky jerks back. "How did you find me?" he demands.

"Shield unfroze me. They had reason to believe Anthony was still alive-- What's wrong?"

Bucky pulls away from Steve's grasp and goes to the window to peer out. Tony's just visible in the small yard, fiddling around with a metal pipe and some electric wires.

"You dumb punk," Bucky growls under his breath. "Where's the other? Do you have him watching this house?"

"What?"

"Shield agents operate in pairs. Where is he?"

"Back at our apartment--maybe a half mile away." Lead settles in Steve's stomach. His own shock and joy and libido kept him from connecting the dots the way he should have done the moment he set eyes on his friend. "Bucky," he says, and something in his voice makes Bucky go still. "Who killed Howard and Maria?"

Bucky turns to look at him. "I did."

Steve must have staggered because abruptly he finds himself sitting in the chair again.

"Yeah," Bucky agrees. There's a sickly sort of smile on his face. "That was kinda my reaction, too, when I finally broke the programming, 'bout a year back."

"Oh Hell..." Steve runs a shaky hand down his face. "Programming? Than it wasn't--You didn't--"

Bucky's never been one to hold back a punch. "Doesn't matter. They're just as dead."

Steve drags his hand down his face, his mind whirling. "And you took Anthony?"

"Steve," Bucky says, his voice is almost soft. "You need to go."

"What?"

"Your partner will want to know where you are, if they don't already. You need to leave, for an hour. Draw them off. We'll be gone by the time you come back."

"No." Steve stands. "This isn't your fault--Shield can help."

It's the wrong thing to say. "Open your damn eyes," Bucky snaps. "Shield _is_ Hydra."

A spark of adrenaline zips down his spine, all the way to his feet. "What are you--No." He shakes his head. That doesn't make any sense. He knows Hydra, _died_ fighting Hydra. He'd know if they were -- No. Also, Peggy would _never_ work for them. "Shield found me, they woke me up, gave me a home, a mission. Why would they go through the trouble if they were Hydra?"

"Because it's easier to use Captain America than kill him."

 He hates how that makes a certain, cynical sense. "They're the good guys," he insists. "Their mission is to protect people--"

"So maybe it's not all of them, but Shield's got a rotten core."

"Buck, you're confused--"

The wild, feral look is back in Bucky's eyes, and Steve gets the uncomfortable impression that maybe he's a little more scrambled than Steve thought.

"They had me close to forty years," Bucky says lowly, reading his expression, "You don't think I know who they are? How they operate? What they _do_ to people?" He stops, and visibly makes an effort to calm down, his fists clenching into a tight ball. "I'm _never_ going back to that, you get it? They'll unmake me, take Tony, and plug him in a system that will exploit him."

The words trigger something in Steve's mind. "The asset?" he asks softly.

Bucky makes a full body twitch. His expression goes cold. "Leave."

"Bucky--"

"I-- Steve, you know what we had, but I'm as good as Tony's father to him, now. You try to take him away, we're going to have a fight about it."

He doesn't like the look in Bucky's eyes, like there's something cold and alien lurking under the surface. The same thing that grabbed Steve by the neck. Not Bucky. The Soldier.

"How do I know Tony's safe?" Steve asks.

Strangely, Bucky doesn't take offense. The coldness fades, just a little. "Kept him safe so far." His lips twitch up. "Even from myself."

Steve steps forward. "You're crazy if you think I'm losing you again."

"So ditch Shield."

"I can't--"

"Then I'm taking Tony and leaving while we can, and if you try to stop me--" His eyes harden again. "Don't try to stop me." He walks to the door, but as he passes, he reaches to grip Steve's elbow and looks him in the eye. "Bucky Barnes died forty years ago, okay?"

Steve feels his throat thicken up. "It was only a couple weeks ago for me."

Bucky leans in, and the kiss is swift, but warm. When he draws back he gives Steve's arm a squeeze. "I've never blamed you. Not one damn day."

"I have."

"I know," Bucky says, a trace of his old, dark humor flashing back. "You put your plane down in the arctic. I never thought I'd see you give up for anything."

Steve doesn't reply. He wouldn't admit it at the time, could barely think of it now, but Bucky's not wrong.

Bucky drops his grip and walks past Steve, and Steve knows he should stop him, but to do that meant fighting his friend. He can't. He just can't.

Bucky turns back at the door.

"You've found me once already. Next time, Stevie, come alone."

 

* * *

 

It takes nearly five hours for the marks around Steve's neck to fade. He walks into the apartment, finding Sitwell pouring over reports. Just as he was doing before Steve left. 

"Anything to report?" Sitwell asks. It's a common enough question, but the hair on the back of Steve's neck rises. Sitwell's a decent enough fellow -- a little bland and serious, even for Steve's taste, but he's solid. The men in Hydra's day were fanatical.

... Except when they weren't. He'd watched one kill Dr. Erskine right in front of him, hiding in plain sight. And when had Bucky ever led him wrong before?

Except (again)... the man Steve knew would had died himself rather than kill Howard and his wife, would never have kidnapped their only son. Bucky said Hydra had programmed him like... like a machine. Made sense they'd plant distrust of Shield, too, in case he ever went for help.

But...

"No, nothing to report," Steve says. He can't look Sitwell in the face.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Steve realizes the DNA sampler is gone. He hasn't had it since the fight, and has no doubt Bucky took it with him.

When Sitwell asks, he spins a yarn about traveling to a part of town with a lot of pick-pocketers, but again, he can't look Sitwell directly in the eye. 

He hates to lie, and isn't sure he's doing the right thing.

Sitwell stares hard at him, shock edging on disbelief. Steve smiles back with his best 'aw shucks, I'm just a dope from the 40's, what are you gonna do?' smile.

Bucky's surely rabbited by now. He should say something.

He doesn't.

But it's not Steve's imagination -- he senses a distance between himself and Sitwell from then on. When no new leads turn up within the week, and Sitwell suggests maybe it would be better if Steve return to the states to report their progress in person, Steve pretends not to know why.

He also carefully hides his relief. He has questions that need answering, and if Shield does have a rotten, Hydra core, there's still one person he trusts above all others.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hoped to add some Bucky to this chapter, but his scene kinda took a life of its own, so it needed its own space. He'll show up in the next, though! :D

Peggy's hair has gone the color of steel, and she keeps it pinned up and away from her face. Life has dug wrinkles into the corners of her eyes and along her mouth, but to Steve she's just as lovely as ever.

He's met with her on a couple occasions after he woke. The first time was awful, full of what coulda been's, and unanswered questions on both sides. It got better, after that. They were two stubborn people, and they wanted to make their friendship work. 

Peggy had carried on after Steve had downed the plane. She'd helped found Shield, married, and had a couple of kids. Steve was truly happy for her.

"Nearly forty years on this side of the pond, and I still can't find a place that sells a decent infusion of tea," she apologizes, setting down a cup in front of him. The herbal smell wafting up is delicious.  Steve cradles it and brings it to his nose, savoring it.

It's as if he's been carrying around a led ball in his stomach for the last few days. Guilt piles on top of guilt -- did he all but abandon Bucky again? Should he have insisted Bucky come, meet with Sitwell, show him that there was nothing fishy about Shield? Steve's orders, his common sense say yes. His gut screams no.

The smell of the tea and the sense-memory it brings; of quiet moments in the command room with Peggy and the Howling Commandos as they planned out the next raid, eases the led ball a little.

"It's great, Peg."

She sniffs and sits down on the chaise lounge chair across from him, folding her hands in her lap. "Drink and tell me what's bothering you."

She was never one for small talk. "How do you know something is?"

"You get a little wrinkle between your brows." She reaches up and brushes the place with the side of her thumb. Her skin smells of lavender. "Here."

Steve rubs at it, feeling his cheeks heat a little, and glances covertly around the empty living room. He hasn't heard anyone else in the house, but...

Steve drops his voice. "Are we alone?"

She gives no visible reaction, except for a slight tilt of her head. "Arthur has gone for the afternoon with his VFW friends." Then she leans back, feet elegantly crossed at the ankles. Waiting.

Steve takes a breath and sets down the cup. He's been back in the country for nearly 72 hours, and he's still tied up in knots. If this were the Peg he'd known forty years ago, he'd blurt everything out. But times have changed everyone except him. He starts at the beginning.

"Did Fury tell you about my assignment?"

"Little Tony Stark, yes."

Tony, not Anthony. Bucky had called him the same, but Fury had used 'Anthony'. It feels significant, as if Fury hadn't really known the child, but Peggy had. Steve takes a breath and braces himself. "I found him."

That clearly takes Peggy by surprise. "You mean, alive?"

He can't help his smile. "Alive enough to give me a good kick in the knee."

"I never held much for Fury's theory that he could have survived both the crash and fire..." She trails off and pins him with a hard look. "I'm sure there's a good reason you came back alone."

"The man who's... taken him in turned out to be someone I knew from the war." It's edging too close to deception for his taste, but he needs to understand a thing or two when-- _if_ \--the full truth comes out.

She favors him with a long, hard look. "You trust him with that little boy's life?"

"Yes. My friend, um, he seemed like... he's been through a lot." Understatement of the century. "It's been a long forty years for everyone 'cept me. He seemed paranoid. But Anthony--Tony looked healthy." Steve leans forward. "Tony called him his dad."

"Oh dear," Peggy murmurs to herself. Steve had expected condemnation, but Peggy's eyes are suddenly soft with understanding. Rising, she walks to a china cabinet where several pictures in frames sit. She reaches to touch one, then sighs. "Howard should have never become a father."

It's hard for Steve to imagine it himself, but Howard was young and brash as he knew him. He would have had just a hard of a time picturing Peggy as a mother, but she seemed to have done fine. Steve keeps his voice neutral. "Fury said Howard spoke often of the boy."

She lets out an un-ladylike snort. "Of his son's achievements, of his intelligence, of what he would become. Yes. But of him as a person?" She shakes her head. "It wasn't Howard's late age -- the man was just as married to his job as he was to his wife. And Maria, God rest her soul, was a brilliant mathematical analyst. She had no time for messy, loud things like babies. Their butler more or less raised them."

"Edwin Jarvis?" Steve asks, remembering the name from the file.

"Yes. It broke his heart when the Starks were killed. He's in hospital now. Terminal lung cancer." She flicks her fingers, pushing away the regret. "I'd like to pass along that the boy is alive, if you'd allow it. It would bring him a measure of peace."

Steve hesitates, then nods. If Howard had hired Jarvis to take care of his family, he would be trustworthy.

She looks at him. "But you didn't know any of this. So there's another reason you didn't bring Tony in, as ordered." Her stare becomes more focused, reading Steve just as she had four decades ago, "And I'd wager a better one for why you're keeping your war friend's name back."

"He wouldn't come, think's it's too much of a risk to Tony. He--" The words rise up in his throat, ' _It's Bucky. I didn't even search for his body, and he's been alive all this time. He looks just the same, and... it's him, Peg, spooked as I've ever seen him, and it's all my fault..._ ' It takes everything he has to swallow them back down.  "He believes Shield has been compromised."

"Compromised?" Her voice goes sharp. "How?"

"Peg, how sure are you that Hydra's gone for good?"

Her eyebrows raise. "I dare say, the last of them were snuffed out during the final assault in the Alps ," she says promptly, then narrows her eyes. "There have been hints of remaining cells. I sent agents out -- went myself, the once." Her eyes sparkle with a remembered fight. She always liked a fight, did Peg. "But they were unorganized bands of zealots. Much like the Neo-Nazi's here in the states. They follow the same ideals as the original, but infighting keeps them from gaining any power."

Steve watches her closely. She isn't lying.  He knows all her tells.

"Peg," he says, "They've gotten in before." The fifth observer. Dr. Erskine's assassination.

"Into the Army," she corrects. "And that was before we knew what we were facing, wasn't it? Every man and woman in Shield goes through a truth detector, a thorough background check to the back of the teeth, and a complete psychological workup."

Her jaw is set in a hard line, and he knows then it would be a mistake to tell her that Bucky had all but admitted he had worked for Hydra.

' _Hydra picked me up_. _They erased me -- took me out, stuffed the Soldier in._ '

Peggy watches him carefully, her gaze as sharp as ever. "You have reason to believe your war friend."

"I do," he says honestly.

Something flickers in her eyes. An old suspicion he's seen before when he was palling around with Bucky.

"There's something I never told anyone," she says. "Three weeks before Howard's death, he paid me a visit. Sat on that very chaise. He was in a right state, Steve. I've never seen him so manic... I asked if he was on sniffers." She gives a sour laugh.

"Something was bothering him?" Steve asks.

"He said he'd made a mistake, but he wouldn't elaborate. He was," she pauses, "you know how he got three nights in a row in his lab? Like that, but worse."

Steve did. Fevered. He'd seen his friend like that a few times during the long stretches in the war. Like so many ideas were bursting from his skull, he couldn't contain them all.

Peggy continued, "Howard would half start to say something, then switch to another subject. All he would admit was he made an error, but wouldn't say how or what it was. Eventually, I became so frustrated I told him to go home and see his wife and son for once." She pauses. "Three weeks later, he drove his family to their country estate. They never made it."

"It wasn't your fault, Peggy."

"Oh," she sighs. "I know." But the sad look in her eyes says otherwise. "I just wish... if I knew what was bothering him so, I would have done everything in my power to help."

"Do you have any idea what his mistake was?"

"None." She shakes her head. "I searched his files -- what I could decipher, at least. His engineering was impeccable. The only true mistake I ever saw him make was--" she stopped, but the rest of her sentence hung in the air between them '... _letting his family slip through his fingers_ '. 

As Steve thinks about this, Peggy crosses the room again and goes to a drawer. With her back to Steve, he can't see exactly what she's doing, but there's a small click of a latch. Then she strides back to him and pushes a hard, rolled bundle into his hand.

Steve looks down and nearly drops the neat roll of cash. He's not sure how much it is but -- Mother Mary -- there's a hundred dollar bill on top.

"For heaven's sake, Steven. It's money, it's not going to bite you," she says in fond exasperation. "And you'll find it doesn't go nearly as far now as it did then -- you can thank inflation for that."

"Peggy, what--"

"You are going back, aren't you?"

He looks at her, surprised. She nods.

"Yes," she says. "Of course you are. I know you, and I know men your age. No, don't look at me like that. You won't understand until you're on the other side of maturity -- if you age at all, which I'm starting to doubt." She smiles, ruefully. "But more importantly, if there's a Hydra threat, I want to know about it. I may not be director anymore, but Shield is still mine, and I'm to know about any threat to her."

"Peggy, I can't take this." He tries to hand it back to her, but she shakes her head.

"It's not a gift, it's a stipend from your director, and it comes with a condition."

"And that is?" Steve asks warily.

She smiles again. The wrinkles stand out on her face, making her look... grandmotherly. "Bring Tony up for a visit, when you can. He was such a hellion, and this house has been too quiet since my own boys grew up."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: When I watched the first Cap movie when it first came out, I had little idea of the comics. I truly thought Peggy was Tony Stark's mother. :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because it's Steve's birthday, this is the first of two new chapters. :D

 

* * *

 

 

The roll of money sits like a lump at the bottom of Steve's pocket, and he can feel it every time he takes a step. He keeps his eyes forward as he walks through the narrow Shield corridors. There are some things he needs from his quarters, and he doesn't waste time.

Turning the corner, he comes face-to-face with agent Sitwell.

Steve pulls up short surprise. "You're back?"

Sitwell gives a rueful look. He does not, Steve notices with a corner of his mind, look out of place in the agent's quarters complex, though he's told Steve himself that he has an apartment outside the Triskelion. "Fury pulled me out after your report," Sitwell says. "I'm not surprised: We've been running on rumor for weeks without any new leads."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Steve replies, though inside he's relieved.

Sitwell shrugs, unbothered. "It's still an open investigation. We'll be sent back down as soon as there's another lead. Speaking of, Fury wants to speak to you tomorrow at 1300. Probably your next mission." He claps Steve on the shoulder -- a bit of familiarity he never showed down in Mexico -- and continues his way down the hall.

Steve turns the corner to the quarters he uses when he's stationed in the Triskelion, calculating this new bit of information. He has until one PM tomorrow until he'll be missed

Peggy was right. He is going back.

There's not much he wouldn't mind leaving behind in his quarters. He changes, packs spare clothes into a duffel, and his shield into a large messenger bag. Then he shrugs on his favorite, scratched brown leather jacket and leaves. He doesn't look back.

He's appalled at airline ticket prices -- it nearly takes a quarter of the cash Peggy gave him -- but grimly forks it over anyway. A one way ticket to London under his name. He checks the duffel, then leaves the terminal and circles to the airstrip, shield slung over his shoulder in the messenger bag. It's all he's ever needed. He sneaks into the wheel-well of the next plane bound for Mexico City.

The wheel-well isn't pressurized, and there's not enough oxygen to sustain a normal person at thirty thousand feet, but he hasn't been normal for a very long time.

 

* * *

 

 

Steve starts his search at the last place he'd seen Bucky. 

The small apartment had been wholly cleaned out and repainted -- perhaps by the landlord, though standing in the empty, echoing living room, Steve's not so sure. This is a low income neighborhood, and the whole thing has a very... sanitized feel.

There's no overt clues, but he goes to the bathroom cabinet drawers, searching carefully one by one.

There is a small bible tucked into the medicine cabinet. Each of the Commandos had their own book, their own code for when they got into trouble and had to ditch an encampment or a safe house for a new location.

Steve takes a breath and flips the pages to the book of Leviticus.

Several chapters and verses have been circled. Steve nearly punches the air in victory.

Now, he has latitude and longitude for where Bucky has gone next.

 

* * *

 

 

Twenty days and five different cities later, Steve finally comes to a dead end.

It's a village on the beach, too out of the way for tourists, but large enough to have a community. The coordinates lead to a village square. Steve walks by booths selling fruit and homespun goods, searching for any signs of a dwelling. For anything of Bucky at all. There's nothing, and after a few hours he digs out the most recent Bible he found and checks again. No, the coordinates lead to this place exactly.

By the second day Steve's standing again in the square, grinding his teeth. He's wondering if he should go back to the previous house and see if he's missed something, when someone knocks his shoulder, passing by.

Steve turns, and his heart does a flip. Bucky is walking past him, an unhurried swagger to his step. He doesn't look back over his shoulder at Steve, but Steve trails after, anyway.

When Bucky turns into a dark, narrow alleyway, Steve follows.

He's ready, this time, when a metal hand seems to come out of the darkness and clamp on his shoulder. Steve turns with the movement, ready for an attack, and just as ready not to fight back. To show Bucky he's not here to cause any harm.

He's pushed backwards, and Steve grunts as his shoulders hit the brick wall behind him.

"You come alone this time?" Bucky asks, low and rough.

"Why don't you tell me," Steve says with a flash of insight. "You're the one been watching me over the last two days."

There's a pause, then, "Give me your pack."

Steve hesitates for just a moment, but then unslings it from his shoulder. He watches as Bucky carefully removes every item -- Steve doesn't have much. His duffel went along with a plane he never boarded; all he has is his shield, a change of clothes, a few toiletries and a little spare change he's divided from Peggy's money.

Bucky examines each item, not saying what he's looking for. Then, carefully, he stows everything back, giving special reverent attention to the shield. He rises smoothly and hands the pack over, looking Steve in the eye.

"You swear on your life, you're not being followed?"

"Yes," Steve says at once.

"How about on Tony's life?"

He's honestly curious. "Is it worth Tony's life?"

"The kill order was for the entire Stark family," Bucky says, and Steve supposes he would know well enough. It's still drops the bottom out of his stomach.

He lowers his voice, even though they're alone here. "Did... do you know why they wanted them dead?"

"No." Bucky shakes his head. His gaze is empty. "I was told my mission parameters, then pointed in the right direction."

He hates that look. Daringly, Steve reaches out to touch under his jaw, tilting Bucky's face up a little, trying to bring him back to the present. "I came by myself, Buck. I swear. You know," he smiles humorlessly, "it's the second time I've gone AWOL for you."

It works. Bucky's gaze is back on Steve, and there's a flash of his old smile. "I warned you from the moment we met I was nothing but trouble." Then, lower, "C'mere, Steve."

The alleyway is close. They are only a step away. Steve does, and Bucky runs his fingers up his lapels, catching him by the collar. Then he smoothes the flat of his hands down along Steve's pockets. It's an intimate, but brisk touch.

"What are you searching for?"

"Trackers. Radios -- they have microphones no bigger than a quarter nowadays."

"Really?"

"Really."

So Steve submits to the frisk for another few moments, but Bucky's so close, he can't help himself for long. "I missed you, Buck."

Bucky's hands still as he glances at him, and Steve leans the rest of the distance to slant their mouths together. Bucky makes a low noise, but doesn't pull away.

The kiss isn't as it had been a few weeks before -- anger and desperation tinged by disbelief -- it's softer. This is a reunion. Steve holds Bucky and feels him relax, inch by inch. Bucky keeps running his hands over Steve's body, and Steve thinks he's still half checking him for hidden objects, half assuring himself that Steve is really there.

Steve knows the feeling.

That's fine by him. This is Bucky, sure as ever. The same jerk Steve's been in love with since they were little.

He catches one of Bucky's hands as he slides it around Steve's ass, not-so-subtly over a back pocket. "You done checking me for weapons?"

"You _are_ a weapon, mister." Then Bucky surges forward again, licking into Steve's mouth in a way that flash-heats his blood. Steve's shoulders hit the alleyway wall again.

"Missed you," Bucky returns, between gasps of breath. "I missed you like nothing else--I can't believe you're alive. We're both..."

 _Alive_ , Steve mentally finishes for him. And it's true -- it's insane, forty years later, and they find each other again. It's like fate.

Steve slides a hand to the back of Bucky's neck, fingers in his long hair. _I missed you_ , he thinks with every kiss. _The world wasn't the same without you by my side. I could hardly carry on._

He doesn't say the words aloud, but it's almost as if Bucky hears it anyway. He melts into Steve, pressing their bodies flush.

"God... You're going to... these pants are cut tight, nowadays," Steve complains, when he can catch his breath.

Bucky nips his bottom lip. "So lose the pants."

Steve groans. His hips jut forward to grind against Bucky. "I'm not... doing this in a dirty alley." He wants Bucky, sure as ever, but not in a place like this. He wants to undress him, see what's become of him over the years. He wants to do him right and proper in a bed, because every time he closes his eyes he sees Bucky fall away from him down that mountain pass, and he wants -- needs -- to make sure he's whole and alive.

Maybe Bucky senses a little of this. He pulls back, and their harsh breathing echoes in the alleyway between them. "Tonight," Bucky says. It sounds like a promise.

"Why not now?" Steve grips him closer. "You got a place you're staying?"

"Sure I do, but there's a seven-year-old living in it." He sounds amused, and Steve immediately feels like a dope. Of course. Tony. It's always like that when Steve gets a little hot under the collar -- his brain leaks out of his ears.

Bucky sighs. He leans back, though Steve doesn't loosen his grip.

"Tell me right now. Are you staying, Steve? 'Cause this," he gestures to the alley, "is a thing we can have, but I'm not bringing you near the kid if you're going to up and disappear on him."

"I'm staying," Steve says, running a hand up Bucky's spine, feeling new muscle there. "As long as you'll have me."

Bucky glances to the side. "It's not gonna be easy. I've done... some terrible things."

"You know I don't run away from the truth just because it's a little ugly."

Bucky shudders and leans into him for a moment, as if taking his strength. Steve stands quiet. "I have bad days, Steve." His voice is low. Shamed.  "Sometimes I wake up thinking I'm back, there, about to be iced again, or... worse."

 _Iced?_   Steve thinks, but what he says is, "You've been shell shocked."

Bucky nods. "A little." But the suddenly haunted look in his eyes say otherwise.

It's a risk, but Steve lays his hand on Bucky's left arm. He's wearing a long-sleeved shirt, even in this hot weather, and Steve can feel the solid metal underneath. "And this?"

Bucky shrugs. The motion is smooth, like it's not a prosthesis at all. "Hydra couldn't have a one-armed assassin running around."

It's hard not to pounce on the subject of Hydra, but he's known Bucky forever, and Steve can sense strain under his words. He's going to get to the bottom of exactly what happened, and what Hydra's connection with Shield is, but now is not the time.

"I'm done with Shield," Steve says. "No one knows where I'm at -- I'm where I want to be."

Bucky takes a breath and lets it out. "Okay then." And he steps back from Steve. It's hard to let him go, especially when Bucky adjusts the front of his pants, throwing Steve a little bit of a smirk when he catches Steve watching him. 

"C'mon, Captain America," Bucky says, "I've got a kid you have to get back into the good graces of."

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder: This is the second of two new chapters today, and it's full of unrepentant fluff. :)

 

* * *

 

Bucky leads him back out the other side of the alley and into the bright sunshine. The distant crash of waves tells Steve they aren't too far away from the beach.

Tony's two streets away, working with some neighbor boys of ridding a coconut of its tough outer husk. He looks up at Bucky's approach and waves, running to the side to retrieve a blue plastic pail and toy shovel. With it in hand, the boy walks up to them, looking from Bucky to Steve and back again.

"This is my friend, Steve," Bucky says to Tony in Spanish. "He'll be staying with us for awhile."

Tony doesn't look happy about this at all. So Steve crouches down to his level. He takes his cue from Bucky and speaks in the same language. "It's nice to meet you again, Tony. I, uh, apologize for the other week."

"It was a 'misunderstanding'," the boy replies with the air of repeating something told to him. There are practically air quotes around the word.

"That's right," Steve says. "I'd like to start over if I can." He holds out his hand.

Tony shakes it -- his entire hand doesn't fit all the way around Steve's -- but then he scowls and looks up at Bucky. "He shouldn't stay with us -- he's big and blond. He'll never fit in around here."

"Fit in?" Steve asks, ignoring the boy's rudeness.

"We need to always move and hide all the time from the bad people," the boy replies with a 'duh' tone of voice. Steve's heart sinks a little: Tony has picked up on Bucky's paranoia.

"Steve's always stuck out like a sore thumb, but he knows a thing or two about fighting," Bucky says. "Why don't you give him a chance?"

Tony blows his cheeks out in exasperation, but at least seems to take Steve more seriously. He holds up the bucket. "Can you build sand castles? Dad can't -- he gets sand in his arm."

"I might have promised him a beach day awhile ago," Bucky deadpans. "Before I knew we were having a visitor."

Recognizing an olive branch when he sees one, Steve says he knows a thing or two about sand castles, and spends the next few hours being bossed around by a very demanding mini-architect.

Tony chatters, fast as Howard ever did, of using bits of driftwood in place of pretend support struts, and canals for water supplies and pathways for people. And ,"No, don't put that canal there -- it should be dug deeper. You see the second tower, no _the_ other one. That's going to be a windbreak. Build it high as you can -- do you think if we get the sand wet enough we can build a pyramid? Like in Giza?"

But his smiles when Steve does something right, are startlingly close to Bucky's.

It's exhausting, and Bucky, who sits a safe distance away, only smirks back at Steve's 'help me out here!' looks. Steve gets the feeling his excuse about getting sand in his metal arm is just that. An excuse.

But Steve doesn't miss how Bucky's never fully relaxed, always scanning the rest of the beach. On the look out and ever watchful.

"I don't think that little girl's a danger to anyone," Steve says gently, seeing Bucky stiffen when a red-headed ten-year-old walks by, clearly on the search for shells.

The look Bucky throws his way is hard to read. "Guess you've never heard of the Red Room."

"No, should I?" 

He doesn't get his answer: Tony's demanding Steve's attention again. Apparently, the barracks for the castle soldiers were supposed to be hexagon shaped, but he's changed his mind and thinks an octagon with eight sides is cooler.

 

 

* * *

 

Later, when the sun is going down, and they're walking back from the beach, Steve tugs Bucky close, throws an arm around his shoulders, and says in a quiet undertone, "You're a jerk."

Bucky doesn't even pretend innocence. "I ain't turning down free babysitting services."

"I'm not a baby!" Tony demands hotly, barging between them. Steve reluctantly let's his arm drop.

"Nope, you're an eavesdropper." Bucky ruffles Tony's hair, making the kid duck away from him.

"You're talkin' right in front of me! Hey Steve," Tony turns in a rapid change of mood and starts walking backwards in front of their path. "What's twelve times five?"

"Sixty," he replies. It took him forever to learn the multiplication tables as a child, but he came across them again after the serum. After that, it was locked in his head forever.

He must have gotten it right because Tony scowls. "What about fifty-four divided by three point six?"

This one is a little harder. It takes a moment for him to visualize the numbers. "Fifteen."

Tony narrows his eyes. "What's two fifths of six hundred eighty-seven?"

At this point, Steve's sure Tony is trying to pull his leg. He doesn't even have a piece of paper to work out the sums. "Why don't you tell me?" he teases, catching Bucky's eye.

"It's two hundred seventy-four point eight," Tony says promptly.

Steve blinks. "You're joshing me. You made that up."

"No I didn't!"

"No, he probably didn't," Bucky confirms in grim amusement.

Tony takes a breath. "What's two--"

"Enough," Bucky interrupts, and presses a couple of coins in Tony's hand. "Go to Mrs. Garcia and see if she'll sell us some of her tomatillos for dinner."

Tony sprints happily off, as still full of energy, though even Steve's feeling a little windblown.

"He did all that math in his head?" Steve asks.

Bucky snorts. "Those were warm-ups, pal. He was going easy on you. A few months back, he took apart a radio and got it to pick up military frequencies from a base nearby." He pauses. "It took him two whole days to crack their code."

Steve whistles, softly. No wonder Sitwell had called Tony the Asset.

They walk a little ways more, and Steve bumps his shoulder against Bucky and asks quietly, "Why isn't he speaking English?"

"Because the Winter Soldier knew anyone looking for Tony Stark would be searching for an American. So he taught him Spanish to blend in, and Russian so they could speak in private."

It takes a beat too long for Steve to realize Bucky is speaking of himself, in third person. A shiver runs up his spine.

 _Hydra picked me up_. _They erased me -- took me out, stuffed the Soldier in...._

"Hey," he says, catching Bucky by the arm. "You're James Buchanan Barnes, not a... Winter Soldier."

"I'm James Buchanan Barnes now," he replies, and his tone is so flat and even it's almost blank. "I wasn't for a very long time."

"Buck..." 

"It doesn't matter." He nods to a neat row of small cottages just down the street.  "That's our place, ahead."

 

* * *

 

The beach house is larger than any of the apartments Steve visited while on his search for Bucky. It's clean, though spare of any personalization, and it's immediately clear that Tony has taken over the single bedroom -- there's a handful of toy robots made from what looks like the cannibalized parts of different appliances.

Tony returns with his bucket filled to the brim with small green and purple fruits. Bucky sets him to remove the papery outer husks, and Steve volunteers to chop peppers and onion.

It's strangely domestic, but a little comforting, and Steve watches how the flat blankness melts away from Bucky as Tony chatters on. By the time dinner is set on the table, Bucky's nearly as relaxed as Steve's seen him all day.

After dinner's served and eaten, Tony looks at Bucky and asks, "Where's Steve gonna sleep?"

"On the pull-out sofa, with me," Bucky replies.

Steve's cheeks heat up, and he reins in the urge to punch Bucky in the shoulder. But Tony doesn't seem to pick up on anything unusual. He's smart, but he's seven-years-old, and not worldly enough to understand.

"You're beet red, Rogers," Bucky mutters in an undertone, a shadow of a smile on his face.

Steve doesn't trust himself to answer in a way that won't tip off the boy, so he mutters something about spices. He does pull Bucky aside later, when Tony's distracted by one of his robot toys, and asks, "Was that necessary?"

"Why? You plan on sleeping somewhere else?"

"No, but--"

"Steve, the kid can sleep through an earthquake, but eventually he's going to figure out we're bunking up. If we draw attention away from it, he's going to get the idea we're doing something shameful."

Steve's taken aback. He's seen Bucky interacting with Tony all day, but it's only hit him -- really hit him -- now. Bucky is a dad. "It's just weird, is all."

"What, you and me?" Bucky asks, annoyed. "Isn't it a little late to be having a crisis 'bout being queer?"

"No. You. Acting like a mature... parent." 

Bucky looks briefly surprised. Then he shrugs, and glances over his shoulder at Tony, who's at the dining table and fiddling with some electronic guts of a machine Steve can't identify. "Yeah, well, I'm all he's got, so I gotta do the best I can."  He turns back to Steve and smiles, the same sly, easy smile that had come so easy to him before the war, but that Steve had hardly seen since. "Stop worrying, I'm not necking you in front of the kid."

Steve splutters.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Later, when Tony is nodding off, Bucky leads him to his bedroom, and Steve hears Tony wake up enough to demand a story. Apparently it's a nightly routine. But it's Tony who reads aloud from their book. Steve's not familiar with the story, but it has people called Hobbits in it.

Tony reads straight through the chapter clearly and without a stumble. Afterwards, Bucky tucks him in and returns to the living room, closing the bedroom door behind him.

Bucky flops down next to Steve on the couch, sighing and leaning his head back, "So that's Tony," he says in English. He sounds exhausted.

"You were worse at his age," Steve says.

"Only because I had you around to get me into trouble," Bucky shoots back. Then he opens his eyes and gives Steve a tentative, side-long-look. "I still can't believe you're here, and not just a hallucination. But if the kid can see you, you must be real, right?"

"I'm real," he says, his heart clenching. He puts a hand on Bucky's right shoulder, squeezing. "I'm not going anywhere."

"With me 'til the end of the line?" It had become a saying between the two of them during the worst parts of the war.

Steve swallows, grief welling up in the back of his throat again. "If I thought for a second you coulda survived that fall--"

"Don't."

But this has been eating at him ever since he first saw Bucky again, and he has to get it out. "I should have looked for you."

Bucky turns to him, his gaze haunted. "Listen: There was nothing to find. My arm took a lot of the impact -- it got crushed to a pulp, but even then I woulda bled out for sure if Hydra hadn't nabbed me within an hour." He takes a breath that shudders at the end. "And I don't want to talk about it tonight, okay? This was a good day. I don't wanna remember..."

He's gone pale, and his non-metal hand has a tremor to it. Steve wants to ask him more, especially about the Winter Soldier, but to push tonight would be cruel.

"Alright," Steve says. "Alright."

He tugs Bucky close, placing a soft kiss on his forehead. Bucky tilts his face up in a silent question, and Steve answers it. The next kiss starts out slow, unhurried and warm.

Even during twenty-four hour leaves, they didn't have opportunity to really relax and enjoy. Tonight, Steve's determined to take all the time both of them need.

They undress each other in slow, halting increments. Bucky sucks a bruse on the wing of Steve's collarbone. It will be gone by morning.

Steve traces his fingers where the metal arm sinks into the meat of Bucky's shoulder. He wants to ask if it hurts, still. But that's a conversation for another time when Bucky isn't breathing hard, softly arching into him and half-clothed.

"Steve," Bucky whispers, pushing Steve to lay on his back. Their pants are shucked away, and it's skin against skin, the cool feel of his metal arm tucked around Steve's waist. Bucky slides his thigh between Steve's legs and pushes up, just enough for some delicious friction.

"I'm not gonna last long, if you keep moving around like this." Steve grits out. But he palms the swell of Bucky's ass, bringing him closer.

"Don't care," Bucky sounds half-gone. "And keep your damn voice down. If you wanted loud, we coulda done it back in the alley."

That thought is enough to drag Steve back from the edge just a little. He pulls Bucky around so they're laying side by side, fisting his hand around his cock. Bucky shivers and lets out a low, breathy moan, and all Steve wants is to hold him in his arms when he comes. Bucky obliges him, coming apart beautifully under Steve's touch, and cursing a soft blue streak into his shoulder.

Then Bucky looks Steve in the eye, licks a stripe up his own hand, and reaches to curl it around Steve's leaking erection. It's just on this side of dirty enough for him. His hand tangles in Bucky's long hair as he thrusts into his grip, warm and tight and perfect.

"I had a feeling you liked my hair," Bucky says with a wicked grin.

Steve groans and nods. It doesn't take too much after that.

Later, curled up around Bucky on the too-small sofa bed, Steve realizes he's falling asleep warmer than he has since he woke from the ice.

Steve says, "I'm glad I finally found you, Buck."

Bucky mutters something that sounds a little like, "Me too. Now go t'sleep." But he finds Steve's hand in the mess of blankets and squeezes it.

Steve smiles, ducks his head against the back of Bucky's neck, and does just that.

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay. I've been working on my other fic, Tempest in a Teapot, which is Captain America!Bucky/Tony centered, and so requires a completely different head-space than this one. :)

Steve wakes slowly, feeling comfortable and warm and safe. It's the only reason he doesn't jerk in surprise when he opens his eyes to see Tony kneeling not ten feet away next to the shield, which is standing propped up against the wall. That's not where Steve had left last night. Tony's running a hand over the top in awe.

"Tony?" Steve's voice is scratchy from sleep, and only at the last moment does he remember to switch to Spanish. "Where did you find that?"

The boy looks back at Steve, wide-eyed. "This looks like Captain America's shield."

Beside him, Bucky's shifting into wakefulness. Steve glances down to make sure the blanket is covering their lower halves decently. They've both gotten in the habit of sleeping so long apart that they hadn't cuddled together in their sleep. Either way, Tony seems too enamored by the shield to notice that anything is unusual. 

Bucky sits up to see what they're talking about, then goes very still. "Tony, put that back. That's not yours."

"It was in his pack," Tony answers, with no shame at all. 

"I _did_ cover it with my jacket," Steve says.

Tony looks from Steve to the shield and back again. His voice is a little strangled when he asks, "Are _you_ Captain America?"

"Um, yes," Steve says awkwardly. He glances at Bucky for help, but Bucky's frozen in place. "I am." 

Tony's eyes, if anything, grow wider. Then he jumps to his feet and rushes to his room. 

"Great," Bucky mutters. He takes the opportunity to push the blanket off himself, and skim on his boxer shorts. Despite the fact Steve's a little thrown about being outed as Captain America, he can't help but admire the lines of Bucky's body. He's put on some muscle 'round his torso, maybe to compensate for the weight of the arm. He hopes the next time they make love, it's in the sunlight so he can see all of him.

"Hey," he says, reaching out to touch Bucky's side. Bucky doesn't flinch, but it looks like it's a very near thing. Steve pulls his hand back. "Your appendix scar's gone."

"I don't scar up much, nowadays," Bucky says, though the flesh where the metal arm joins his shoulder is pitted and pot-marked. Just like it was hot at the time.

There's something a little... off in Bucky's expression this morning. He's blinking rapidly, looking towards the window, distracted. 

Then Tony rushes back into the livingroom, a stack of colorful comic books in his hands. He jumps on the sofa bed and sits by Steve, laying the comics out. And... Steve's on the cover. Or at least, a fair approximation of him: Squarer jaw, yellow-blond hair rather than his wheat, and a chest so large it's almost... busty. 

"Did you really beat up the Red Skull?" Tony asks, and expertly flips to a page of Captain America doing just that. The bubbles are filled with dialog in a language Steve can't read. Maybe Portuguese. 

He sits up, making sure the blanket is still modestly covering his lap. "Um, yeah. We tangled a few times." 

Bucky turns briefly away from the window, one eyebrow cocked. "It's rude to go through someone else's things, Tony. That's Steve's pack."

"Sorry, Captain America," Tony says, with no hint of remorse in his voice.

Steve smiles. "Call me Steve." He picks up a comic gingerly and turns a few pages. It's not at all accurate. The Commandos are drawn as charactertures of the men he knew, and, "Did they make Gabe white?" he asks looking at Bucky.

Bucky doesn't reply. He's distracted by the window again, though Steve can't anything happening at all outside.

He flips another page, then smiles. "Look." Steve points to a generically handsome young man with brown hair by the Captain's side. Geez, they've aged Bucky down. He looks like he's fourteen. "Do you know who this is?"

"Steve." There's a sharp note in Bucky's voice that pulls him up short. He glances at Bucky, receives a glare, and quickly changes track. Luckily, Tony's not paying any mind, nearly bouncing in place with his own questions.

"Can your shield really deflect bullets? Steel can't do that. Even really strong steel."

"It's actually a vibranium alloy." He tries not to think about how Howard told him the same thing. The irony is much too sad. "It absorbs vibrations." 

"Vibranium isn't on the periodic table of elements," Tony tells him in a superior tone. He flips to another comic. "You crashed your plane, right? Did you die?"

"No. I, um, froze under the ice."

"Did it hurt?"

Bucky turns from the window. "Alright, enough with the inquisition." And he scoops Tony up under one arm. The boy thrashes, giggling and kicking his pajama feet as Bucky pretends to sniff, then recoil. "Phew, when's the last time you had a bath?"

"Nooo!" Tony wails.

"Yes," Bucky confirms with a sideways grin. He sets Tony down with a flourish, and gives him a small push to the bathroom. "Shower, shirt, and shave. Then you get to bug Captain America some more."

"I can't shave!" Tony says in disgust, but he's heading for the bathroom, shooting one lingering look over his shoulder at Steve as if making sure he'll still be there when he gets back.

After he's gone, Steve uses the opportunity to get dressed. Then he makes his way to the small kitchen, which is more like an alcove with a cabinet and a stove, and sidles up close to Bucky, who's also dressed and arranging ingredients. 

The pipes in the small house are old, and Steve can hear water running in the bathroom, but Steve still switches to English and keeps his voice in an undertone.

"He doesn't know you're a Howling Commando?"

Bucky's metal fingers tense over a box of pancake mix, denting it in. "That'll make it real easy to put together how old I am. Then he'll ask how I met his "mom", and he'll start figuring out things aren't adding up."

"Buck, you need to tell him-- Maybe not the whole truth--"

Bucky shakes his head. "Not now."

"When?" He steps closer, rests a hand on Bucky's hip. Bucky doesn't object and Steve leans against him a little bit, sharing his warmth. "The longer you put it off--"

"You think it's so easy? Would you be able to look that kid in the eye and tell him..." He swallows and his hands clench. "I murdered his parents, and I almost did the same to him, if--" He stops again and looks away.

A cold shiver goes down his spine, but Steve carefully doesn't allow himself to react. "If what?"

"I don't know," Bucky says miserably. He runs his real hand down his face and sighs, looking deflated. "I don't know what stopped him from completing his mission."

He didn't miss how Bucky's back to talking about himself in third person again. "Ever notice you say you're the one who killed Howard and Maria, but the Soldier is the one who stopped it? I think you got things backwards."

Bucky's voice is thick, and he doesn't look Steve in the eye. "Don't. You don't get to absolve me of this."

"Who does?"

The muscles in his jaw twitches. "Tony should be living the life. He should have nannies at his beck and call, and all the schooling he wants... A father who's smart enough to keep up with him. A mother. But all he's got is some lousy fucking substitute in me."

"Bucky--"

"No, damn it, Steve," he snaps, though he keeps his voice low as to not be overheard. "You just got here, you don't know how things are yet. He's smart enough to work enough out on his own if you keep dropping hints like anvils, but smarts don't equal maturity."

But Steve's not ready to give up. "You need to tell him something soon. He doesn't need to know it all, just the basics. You're his father, Buck, just not by blood."

Bucky's shoulders sag. "Yeah," he grumbles. "Sure. Great. I'm sure that'll be real comforting."

It's as close to acceptance as Steve knows he's going to get right now. People used to forget Bucky's got a stubborn streak, too. It was learning to outlast him that made Steve the man he is today.

Steve casts a look to make sure the bathroom door is firmly shut. The water is still running. "I spoke to Peggy, before I left."

That perks Bucky up a little. He glances at Steve, a slight smile twisting the corner of his mouth. "She's still kicking around? Good for her." 

"She... had some things to say about Howard and Maria." It felt wrong to be speaking ill of the dead, but it was important Bucky hear this, so he presses on. "She said that their butler raised the boy."

Bucky doesn't answer for so long, Steve wonders if he was going to at all. Then he lets out a breath. "When the Soldier first was lookin' after Tony -- He was such a little squirt. Barely four. And you know, he hardly asked about his mom and dad after the first week or so. Only Jarvis."

Steve nods, and ducks his chin slightly, trying to catch Bucky's gaze. Bucky must see what Steve's thinking, because he rolls his eyes.

"It doesn't make it right, Steve. Not by a long shot."

"I'm not saying that." Though privately, Steve thinks that it goes a long way. 

The water suddenly cuts off with a clank of pipes. It seems to snap Bucky back into himself. He shakes his head.

Steve leans close, not wanting to lose this moment. Not when Bucky seems a little open to talking about the past. "You're sure it was HYDRA?" he whispers.

"Yeah." His voice is as dry as tinder. "I spent near to forty years with them. I'm sure."

Sometimes, even though the clothing's all different, and there's new technology he couldn't have even dreamed before, and Peggy's gone gray and retired, Steve honestly doesn't feel the years he's slept through. And sometimes, like now, it hits him like a punch in the stomach.

Bucky's been forced to kill people for HYDRA longer than Steve has technically been alive. 

It must show on his face. Bucky bristles. "Don't give me your pity look, Rogers. It wasn't all in one hitch. They had him frozen, 'til they needed him."

Steve feels his eyes widen, putting several things together at last. Bucky's mention about being iced yesterday. His strength during their fight, even without the metal arm. The fact that, even now, Bucky looks the same he always had. Just as Steve, too, is nearing seventy and no one would ever guess. 

"Salerno?" he asks, meaning the lab he'd found Bucky in during the war. The Red Skull's men had been testing on him. Maybe trying to recreate the serum? 

Bucky's nod is jerky. He never talked about what he went through, after he got back, and Steve's starting to regret not pushing him. 

"Bucky--"

"No, Steve," he says, probably reading his expression all over again just like they were kids. Steve opens his mouth to object, but Bucky pulls him in that final step, hands resting on his waist. He kisses Steve, deep and aggressive, and he knows he's being derailed on purpose, but it would take a stronger man than Steve to push him away. 

When Bucky pulls back, his smile is just a touch wicked. Steve's heart doesn't skip beats anymore, but it does hammer hard against his chest. He knows his own smile is dopy and fond, but he's just so glad of Bucky. He only wishes to God he could take away what he's gone through, wishes he could have bore it in his place. He's strong enough. That's why they called him Captain America.

Then Tony runs in, freshly bathed, water dripping from his hair and his shirt and pants still stuck to his skin in a bad drying job. Heedless of how close Steve and Bucky are standing, he demands chocolate chips in his pancakes. Bucky informs him he's getting blueberries, and Steve busies himself with heating up a pan.

"Steve wants chocolate chips in his pancakes," Tony insists, casting him a hopeful look.

"Steve's been known too put cheese in his pancakes."

"That was one time," Steve says while Tony makes a face. "And it wasn't too bad, actually." Jacques Dernier had told him blue cheese crumbles in crape mix was a French delicacy. He'd fallen for it, hook, line and sinker.

"That's gross," Tony decides. 

They settle on blueberries. Tony sits at the table and works on some mechanical gadget using a tiny, pocket-sized toolkit. Steve doesn't know what it is, except the toy has multiple bug-like legs. When pancakes are ready, the boy sets the table and they sit down and eat together. It's comfortable, like a family.

It's clear, though, that Bucky isn't totally at ease. He keeps glancing out the kitchen window, frowning at something Steve can't see. 

"That's the second time I've seen those two walk by," Bucky says just as they're finishing their meal.

It's a man and a woman taking a morning stroll on the nearby sidewalk, both wearing sunglasses and long shorts that go down to the knee. They're probably tourists. 

The man glances over in the direction of their house, then away. 

Bucky visibly tenses, and Tony picks up on it, looking between them with his cheeks still full of pancake. "Is it the bad people?" he asks in a low whisper.

 _No_ , Steve wants to say because Tony is young -- much too young -- to be fearful like this. 

Especially because he's not entirely sure it's not all in Bucky's head.

Bucky doesn't answer. He rises, his movements smooth and oddly mechanical at the same time as he peers out the corners of each window. Steve gives what he hopes is an encouraging smile to Tony, then sets his napkin down, rising to walk over to Bucky.

"Hey," he says in a quiet undertone. "You're scaring your kid."

Bucky doesn't so much as look at him. "There should be children playing outside, people goin' about their day. But it's just those two, circling the house."

"They could be getting some fresh air," Steve says, trying to keep things reasonable. He's pretty good at getting a read on a situation, and all of Steve's senses are screaming that the most danger around is only a few feet away.

There's no reaction for a few moments. Then Bucky stills and turns to him. There's a blankness in his eyes that shoots a thrill of fear down Steve's spine. He wonders if he is dealing with the Soldier right now, and not his friend.

Without a word, Bucky strides past Steve and to Tony's bedroom. Steve had stowed his pack there yesterday, unsure of where else to put it. Bucky upends it, scattering the contents over the floor. Then, kneeling down, he paws again through Steve's meager possessions, one by one. Just as he did in the alleyway. 

Steve stands quietly to the side and watches, his hands on his hips. He's seen how combat stress can make men go a little odd before, and if half of what Bucky says is true, he's got more right to it than most. Steve only wishes it wasn't in front of the kid, because Tony's still at the kitchen table, looking on scared. 

He glances back at Bucky as something rips. Bucky's pulled out a butterfly knife -- he wasn't even aware he had it on him -- and cut down into Steve's leather jacket. Then he lets out a string of soft curses.

"Tony, can you identify this?"

The boy does, looking confused at his father's anger. Bucky turns, opening the edges of the split jacket. Some kind of metal wiring is glinting out where it had been sewn under the seams.

"Wait," Steve says, blinking. "What's that?"

Tony cocks his head. "It looks like... transistor wires. Kinda what's in radios." He looks up at Steve. "Why'd you got a radio in your jacket?"

Steve can't move. He feels frozen in place, and vaguely -- horribly -- he remembers running into Sitwell in the SHIELD personnel quarters hallway. Oh Hell, he must have been in Steve's room. 

A slow, sinking sensation settles in his gut. He looks at Bucky and Tony -- this little family who's managed to forge some happiness against all odds -- and knows he has made a grievous error. One he might not be able to come back from.

"Buck... I had no idea. I swear, I didn't know."

Bucky rises to his full height, his mouth pinched angrily. He shakes his head. "Shoulda strip searched you, Stevie."

"I'll draw them off," Steve insists almost desperately. There has to be a way to set this right. There _has_ to. "I'm the one they're tracking. I can--"

Bucky holds up his metal hand to stop him, then swivels to the door. Steve hears it, too. At least five pairs of booted feet are approaching at a quick march.

"It's too late," Bucky says with unnatural calm. "They're already here."


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a minute! This chapter is, like, 95% action. :)

 

 

The sounds of booted feet are coming closer.

Bucky turns to Tony and barks out a phrase in Russian. Immediately, the boy scrambles back and takes cover under the kitchen table.

Steve barely has time to grab his shield before the front door explodes open and men dressed in black armor rush in.

Some are wearing masks covering their faces in the same chilling way HYDRA agents did in the forties. Some are bare faced and young. All of them are clearly expecting to have the element of surprise. They are no match for Bucky and Steve.

The expression on Bucky's face is almost detached as he punches one of the invaders so hard, his sternum visibly caves in. He relieves the dying man of his weapon, and with a flick of his wrist, fires three times. All hit through the eye. All are fatal.

Steve's no slouch. The shield feels light in his hands, and easily flies back to him after every bone-breaking throw.

As Steve clears the living room, Bucky punches a hole through the outer wall with his metal arm (there's a strangled yell from outside -- apparently, he picked his spot well). Then, withdrawing his fist, he points the gun through the newly made hole and begins to snipe those waiting outside.

A startled cry causes Steve to pivot back. A masked HYDRA agent has upended the kitchen table, and is pulling a struggling, fighting Tony to the back door.

Seeing he's been noticed, the agent halts and presses the muzzle of his gun to the side of the boy's head. "Drop your weapons!" The agent's voice is shrill and young. A distant corner of Steve's mind thinks he might just be as panicked as Tony looks. "You come with us, now!"

Bucky makes a strangled, angry sound, taking one threatening step forward. He stops as the agent's grip tightens on Tony.

"Let him go." Steve hears his voice coming as if from far away. The shield is so tight in his hands he feels his fingers creak from it.

"Tony." Bucky's voice is very calm. Very matter of fact. The boy's gaze jerks to him. "Remember what I told you to do if someone ever grabs you."

Tony hesitates one second, then swings a clenched fist down and back, striking between the agent's legs.

Bucky's already moving, and even before the agent has time to crumple, he yanks the man's weapon hand up and away. The gun fires into the ceiling. Tony falls, scrambling to the side, luckily turned away as Bucky slams the agent's head back at a brutal angle, snapping his neck.

That was the last of the agents in the house, or at least the last of the first wave. Steve can hear more outside, and barely has time to flinch before something heavy strikes the side wall, near Tony's bedroom.

The house shakes from the impact. Debris -- plaster and stone -- come loose from the ceiling. Bucky grabs Tony in time to fold himself over the boy, his metal arm covering his head. Steve reaches them both, lifting the shield as stone and roofing material fall on and around them.

He can smell smoke, too.

"We need to leave!" Steve yells. "They'll bring the house down on top of us."

The worst of the debris stops falling within a minute. Steve hears Bucky telling Tony not to look at the dead men, to close his eyes, but Steve's not sure that's better for a child, or worse.

Steve picks up at least three guns and a few magazine refills from the bodies. He hands one to Bucky, who's still crouched by the boy. The air is starting to thicken with smoke. What's left of the roof must be on fire.

"We're going out the back," Bucky says to Tony. "I need you to wait until I tell you, then run as fast as you can."

The boy looks at him with wide eyes. "But aren't there more bad guys outside?"

"Me an' Steve'll take care of them. We're going to run, and find cover."

Tony's face is solemn and pale. He nods, once, almost by rote. He's probably in shock, but that might be for the best right now.

There's another flicker of movement outside the broken front door. Steve aims and shoots, causing the agent to fall back.

"I'll take point, draw them off," Steve says.

Nodding, Bucky grips Tony by the arms and hauls him to his feet. The boy still looks a little shell-shocked, but when Bucky lets him go he stands on his own two feet.

Steve waits for Bucky's nod, then opens the front door. There's a gap at least fifty feet between their house and the next. Gunfire erupts from the foliage beyond as soon as Steve's out the door. Steve brings up his shield, hearing bullets ping off the surface. He fires back; one agent falls from a nearby palm tree with a cry.

There's a brief lull. Bucky takes it. He rushes out of the house, Tony at his side. They cross the clearing in a moment, Steve turning to follow and covering their backs.

Then two HYDRA agents -- one masked, the other not -- step out in front of Bucky.

It all seems to happen in slow motion. Bucky's gun is already up, but he hesitates as the agents take aim, pulling Tony behind him. His shot goes wide. The agents take theirs.

Bucky jerks back, hit.

Steve can't hear his own shout, though his throat aches with it. His shield whips out of his hands and downs the masked agent. But the second agent has Bucky dead to rights for two heartbeats.

Then the unmasked agent drops his gun, his wide eyes on Steve.

Bucky has his gun up again, too. Whatever's in the agent's face -- no, boy's face. He can't be older than eighteen or nineteen -- makes him hold his fire. He snarls and staggers past him, instead, pushing Tony along.

Steve follows with a hurried, "Thanks" to the agent. He doesn't get a reply.

He catches Bucky easily -- he's limping, a hand pressed to his middle where a stain of red's starting to leak through his shirt.

"Are you shot? Are you going to be okay?" Tony turns to Steve, looking at him like he can fix it.

"I'm fine," Bucky's voice is a little strangled. He tugs Tony forward again when he stops as if to check the wound.

"No, you're not--I think that's blood. Captain America, Dad's been shot!"

After glancing back to make sure they weren't being actively followed, Steve comes up beside Bucky and throws his arm around his shoulder, lending him his strength. "Keep running, Tony," he says. Then in an undertone he asks, "Where to next?"

"Warehouse district, four blocks away." Bucky leans against Steve and ducks his head, obviously concentrating on his feet. "Steal a car, if we can find one."

But this is a poor area of town, with streets too narrow for many vehicles. There's nothing immediately available.

They manage a jogging pace, but Bucky's visibly flagging by the time they reach a cluster of abandoned warehouses. He's leaning his entire weight on Steve, and even little Tony's pulling ahead.

Steve kicks a door open and they duck inside. They haven't gone far enough to be clear of the agents, but they may have a few minutes of breathing room. There's a worn staircase that goes to the second level. Bucky makes an ugly noise as Steve helps him up it, but they could use the height advantage.

At the top, Bucky pulls away from Steve and more or less collapses against a scattering of boxes. "I hate getting shot," he complains.

"Are you gonna be okay?" Tony asks worriedly. He looks from Bucky to Steve and back again, fretting.

"I'll be fine. Go back to the door, tell us if anyone's coming."

Tony hesitates, but Bucky shoos him with his free hand. He goes, reluctantly, and Steve bends by Bucky.

"How bad?" he asks, low. There's a lot of blood staining Bucky's shirt, but it's not spurting like an artery wound.

"They weren't high-velocity rounds," Bucky grits out. Without Tony around, his mask drops a little, and he groans as he lifts up his bloody shirt. There are two neat holes above and below his navel, and his own fingers probe the wound. "Didn't hit me deep. They don't need to." He holds up his fingers as an example. There's a black tarry substance on the tips. It's not blood.

Steve touches it, and his fingers go numb.

"What is it?"

"The bullets were loaded with some kinda neurotoxin," Bucky says lowly. "They're meant to take out an enhanced target."

Meaning that the agents were going after both of them. If one of those specialized rounds had so much as grazed Tony...

Bucky's eyes meet Steve's, and Bucky nods, grimly.

"Hell," Steve breathes, looking around. There's no water around to wash out the wound, nothing he could use to pull out the bullets or stitch the holes up afterwards.

"Can you clear the toxin?" Steve asks. He knows he could -- sedatives don't even work on him -- but Bucky didn't receive Erskine's version of the serum.

"I don't know. Maybe, with time. Got any I can borrow?"

No. Time was something they didn't have. Shame and guilt coil together, hot, in Steve's gut -- none of this would have happened if not for him.

"Here," Steve says, swallowing. "Press on it, it'll slow the bleeding."

Bucky does as he's told, visibly wincing. He's breathing too fast, too shallow, and Steve doesn't like the pale quality to his skin. Steve puts his hand over Bucky's, helping keep pressure.

"Buck, I'm so," his voice breaks, "so sorry."

Bucky drags in a deep breath that shudders a little on the exhale. "It's not your fault, punk." It's a lie, Steve knows it's a lie. Bucky meets his gaze. "Shoulda just dragged you with me, the other week."

Steve knows what Bucky's doing, offering forgiveness that Steve doesn't deserve. Steve's answer is rough as he says, "I wouldn't have gone. You know me, too stubborn."

A smile flickers over Bucky's face. It looks more like a wince. "I woulda found some way to talk you into it." He touches Steve's cheek with his free hand. "I've always been stupid over you, Stevie."

Steve can't say anything. His throat is too clogged. He just grips Bucky's hand where it presses over the wound and leans down, his forehead resting against Bucky's. He loves him. He loves him so damn much, and he's failed him twice now.

Tony rushes back a moment later. "Dad, they're coming."

"How many?" Bucky asks, pulling away.

"A lot."

He and Steve exchange a look.  The warehouse is made of wood. All HYDRA would need to do is set a fire, and the whole building will go up. This isn't a defensible position, and Bucky isn't going very far or very fast with two poisoned bullets in his gut.

"Shitty place to make a last stand," Bucky says grimly.

Steve stands, straightening his shoulders.  His shield is heavy and reassuring on his back. "Stay here," he says. "I'll buy you that time."

"No." Bucky wraps his metal hand around Steve's wrist and looks into his eyes. "Steve, I need you to get Tony out of here."

Tony reacts at once. "No! Dad, I'm not leaving."

"No one's leaving anyone. He's coming right back," Bucky says, but his eyes are focused on Steve, and they're telling him something else. "Right, Steve?"

He doesn't answer. He wants to hit something, wants to scream. And if Tony wasn't there, Steve would tell Bucky to go to hell. He _wasn't_ leaving him again.

But he can't throw Bucky over his shoulder and protect Tony at the same time. And there's vivid fear in Bucky's eyes, but determination, too.

"Bad enough what HYDRA does to adults," Bucky says to him in English. "Don't let them take my son."

"Bucky," Steve whispers, but he knows he can't deny him this. Not after everything he's brought to Bucky's doorstep. Steve closes stinging eyes. "Okay."

"No! No!" Tony apparently knows enough English to understand an agreement when he hears it. He stamps his foot. "I can fight, too. I can blow stuff up, an'... I can help! Don't make me go!"

Bucky turns to the boy, and Steve takes that cue to walk to the window and look out. There are at least two dozen agents clad in black setting up a paremeter.

 He tries not to listen too close, but he can still hear Bucky speaking softly to the boy.

"It's my job to protect you, kid. Not the other way around."

"But--"

"I still got a fight in me, but I'll only be able to do my best if I know Steve's got you somewhere safe. Can you do that for me?"

Tony shakes his head, and Steve knows he's too smart and learned too much of Bucky's cynicism to believe that this is a temporary goodbye. "No, Dad, I won't go!"

Steve turns and motions in old army gestures that they've got at least two dozen hostiles outside. Bucky's lips press together. He holds Tony firmly at arm length. "I need you to go with Steve and mind him, now."

"No," Tony says, his face crumpling. "No...."

He gives the boy a small shake, his voice going stern. "Promise me, Tony."

Finally, the boy nods once.

Bucky pulls him into a hug, and Tony clings to him, weeping.

"I love you," Bucky says roughly. "Be brave."

Then he struggles to his feet, gently disentangling Tony's arms. Bucky's gone pale as milk, and his eyes meet with Steve's one last time. There's so much Steve wants to say, but their time has run out.

He can hear the agents gathering up, readying to move in.

Bucky staggers to the door, his breaths taking on a wheeze, his balance unsteady. He aims his gun in one hand and holds up five fingers, counting down. At zero, he shoots.

While the agents outside duck and scatter, Steve scoops up Tony and holds the shield in front of him. He takes a running leap, crashes through a half-broken window and to the roof of the next building over. He hears more gunshots behind him, but doesn't know if it's the agents firing at them, or Bucky covering their backs, or both.

Steve leaps off the edge, and down to the street, but lands a little awkwardly. Tony tumbles out of his grasp with a cry, but the boy rolls and is on his feet soon enough. Steve grabs his hand, jerking him into a run as Tony strains to look back.

But he's only seven years old, and no match for super-soldier speed. Steve grabs him up again, and they duck through at least three more nearly empty streets -- most of the locals have the sense to duck under cover when there's a gun fight nearby.

A BOOM of an explosion from the warehouses behind shakes and rattles the windows up and down the street, breaking many of them. Tony twists in Steve's arms, nearly unseating his balance again.

"He's going to be okay, right?" Tony yells anxiously.

"He's going to be okay," Steve confirms, his chest tight. He can't look back.

 

* * *

 

 

Several minutes later, Steve ducks under an eave as two black helicopters roar by overhead. SHIELD uses black helicopters, too. But when Steve peers out he doesn't see their insignia. 

There's a rusty chain-link fence nearby with a hole big enough for them to squeeze through. It's a junk yard, with old abandoned cars stacked nearly three stories high.

With his free hand, Steve opens the door to one and sits Tony on the old leather seat inside, scanning the boy over for damage. Tony's cheeks are dry again, his eyes are wide. There's a scrape on his elbow, and he'd skinned his hands when he fell. He doesn't seem to notice, and shakes his head when Steve asks if he's hurt.

Steve waits for the slow count of sixty, all his senses on full alert for indication they're being pursued. The only noise is the low wind through rusting cars. He can't even hear gunfire anymore.

"I'm going back," Steve says. "Stay here, keep quiet, and don't come out no matter what until you hear either me or your dad call for you, okay?"

"O-okay." Tony looks small and scared, and Steve wants to comfort him, but everything else is screaming _BuckyBuckyBucky_....

He forces a smile for Tony and touches the top of his head. "Atta boy."

Then he closes the car door. The windshield is busted out, but Tony ducks down low so he's not spotted.

Steve re-straps his shield, and sprints back the way he came as fast as he possibly can.

He has to duck again under cover as the helicopters again zoom past, going back the opposite direction from where they came. Steve watches them go, praying he's not too late. Praying that the fight is still going. That he hasn't failed Bucky again.

But there's no sound as he approaches the warehouse. The entire front has been blasted out, and bullet holes litter what's left of the wooden paneling. The entire building and the block beyond are silent, abandoned.

"Bucky?"

No answer.

With a heavy feeling in his stomach, Steve steps inside. The warehouse is empty. The only thing left are storage boxes and smears of blood on the floor.

Bucky's gone. They've taken him.

Steve stands, staring at the blood. His heart thunders and his ears ring with it. Then he lets out a shout and throws his shield so hard it sticks halfway into the wall.

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought that the vibe of this chapter would be a lot angstier than it actually turned out to be (and that's saying something). So enjoy the reprieve! :D

 

Part of Steve -- a sniveling, cowardly part he refuses to acknowledge -- wants to dither before returning back to the junk yard. He doesn't know what he's going to tell Tony, how he's going to make this right.

( _He can't let himself think about what_ _Bucky's going through right now, or if he's even alive. It wouldn't make sense for HYDRA to take his body if they killed him... unless they wanted that arm... No, stop it Rogers. Focus._ )

The first time he'd lost Bucky, he'd fallen apart -- tried and failed to get drunk. But Peggy's not around now to knock some sense into him.

She had to be told that Hydra was on the move again ( _and might have Bucky back, will remake him into the Soldier -- no, he can't go down that path. Not right now..._ ) She was technically retired, but surely, she still has access to resources...

Straightening, Steve quickens his pace and squeezes back through the gap in the chain-link fence.

"Tony?" he calls, keeping his voice low.

There isn't an answer, just like there hadn't been in the warehouse.

Stepping to the car with the windshield busted out, Steve yanks the door open. It's empty inside.

Steve turns, scanning the junkyard. "Tony?" he calls again, tamping down on a frantic fear that grips his heart. Oh Lord, no, please, he can't lose them both... "Tony, where are you?"

He spies a scuff mark on a nearby junked car -- a shoe print that would fit a child's size. The tower of junked cars is at least three stories high, but Tony didn't climb far.

Steve finds the boy curled and asleep in a small gap between two bumpers. It's a good place -- high enough to be out of eyeline, and a useful lookout.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Steve gently touches his shoulder. "Wake up, slugger. We have to get a move on."

Tony stirs and opens his eyes. He looks confused for a moment, gaze searching beyond Steve. "Where's Dad?"

"He... I'm sorry. By the time I got back, he..." Tony's eyes are large and scared, and the words get stuck in Steve's throat. "They took him."

"But, you said you were going back for him." And before Steve has time to answer, Tony demands, "He's going to be okay, right?"

"Yeah, he's--He's going to be fine. He's a scrapper." Steve tries to smile, but it must come out how he feels -- shaky and wrong -- because Tony looks even more alarmed.

There's a scuffing noise not too far off. Steve doesn't think -- he acts. He whips around, his shield flying. It strikes the nearby HYDRA agent hard, knocking him flat onto the dirt.

The agent wheezes, and holds out his hands. "No, wait, please!"

It's the unmasked one. The young man who had hesitated before shooting again when he'd had Bucky at point-blank range.

Steve was halfway to him, but stops, shield back in his hands. "What do you want?" he asks, voice hard.

The agent shakes his head, climbing getting back to his feet. "You're Steve Rogers? Captain America?"

"I am."

The agent has a bland, unremarkable face. The type that wouldn't stick out in a crowd. At that moment, though, he looks shattered. "They didn't tell us you were our target, sir."

"You shot my dad!" Steve doesn't know when Tony had climbed down, but the boy pushes past him. He marches up to the agent, every muscle in his little body angry and hard. Steve snatches him by the collar to drag him back.

"No!" Tony turns to push at Steve. "Let me go! I saw him do it!"

"I'm sorry," the agent says quietly. "If it helps, I didn't have a choice." He pulls down the collar of his shirt to expose a metal contraption -- an interlinking chain of metal and wire encircling his upper arm, locking a bulbous segment into place over his heart. 

"What's that?" Steve asks.

"Small detonator charge," he replies calmly. "They attached it to us new guys when we started asking questions. It'll go off when I don't report back in," he checks his watch, "seven minutes, thirty seven seconds."

"Good," Tony snarls.

"Tony, that's not kind," Steve says. The boy shakes his head angrily, still tugging away. Steve lets him go, but Tony doesn't try to run at the agent again. "You weren't working with them directly?"

He shakes his head. "I'm a SHIELD agent -- well, junior agent. They pulled me out of training for this assignment because I was fluent in Spanish. Some of the others came from other SHIELD divisions, too." He glances at Tony. "Our team was told that the target was a rogue agent who had kidnapped a child."

"I'm not kidnapped!" Tony says hotly.

"I can see that." The corner of the agent's lip ticks up in a smile, but it's not a happy one. He looks at Steve and adds blandly, "Somehow, I don't think they're who they say they were."

"You're right." Steve firmly doesn't think about the men and women he's killed today, tries not to wonder how many were junior agents, forced into this mission, too -- he remembers the panic in the voice of the man who had grabbed Tony. "It's HYDRA. They've managed to infiltrate SHIELD." And he hadn't wanted to believe it.

The agent nods, swallowing , visibly straining to keep his composure. But there's no surprise on his face. He must have guessed something like this. "I'm sorry," he says to Tony. "Strapped to a bomb or not, I never would have hurt your father if I knew."

"HYDRA are good at finding and exploiting buttons," Steve says.

Tony hesitates, his expression mulish. Steve's not sure if he'll accept the apology, but what the boy says next throws him for a loop.

"How's the detonator work?"

The agent looks puzzled. He's not the only one. Tony gives a loud sigh, clearly annoyed at the slow wits around him. "Is it on just a timer count-down, or is it triggered by a radio frequency? I bet that's it. Take off your shirt, I wanna see."

"Tony, no," Steve says, but Tony levels a hot glare at him.

"I'm good at radios, and locks, and hotwiring all types of cars," he says. " _And_ I help with Dad's arm all the time. I can block the signal and disarm it." He pulls out something from his pocket -- the miniature tool kit he'd been using to work on his electronics in the apartment.

With his shirt off, the agent has the look of someone who just got out of basic training -- whipcord overlaid by new muscles, but in a still compact, unremarkable build.

Tony touches the metal links of the device, and Steve's torn between pulling him back and out of danger -- Bucky wouldn't thank him for letting Tony poke around a live bomb -- and the hope shining through the fear in the young agent's eyes.

"Can he really disarm it?" the agent asks, looking at Steve.

Steve's not sure what to say. "He's handy with electronics." Still, he holds his shield up at the ready, fully prepared to snatch Tony back the moment it looks like something's going wrong. "He's pretty smart."

"I'm smarter than you," Tony says cheekily, and uses the tiny screwdriver to work the cover off the device.

"How long do you have?" Steve asks.

The agent checks his watch. "Five minutes, forty-five seconds."

"You have four minutes, Tony." Steve looks at the agent. "I'm sorry, I can't give you more than that."

The agent's expression is calm, although the bright fear in his eyes betray him. "I understand."

Steve nods. "What's your name, son?"

"Coulson. Phil Coulson.  I would say it's a genuine pleasure to meet you, I'm a big fan, but..." He looks down, shamed.

Steve understands guilt all too well. He glances at Tony -- he's counting the number of thin wires on a circuit board, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth -- and leans closer to Coulson.

"The man I was with... Do you know if he's alive?"

"I abandoned my station after our shootout. I thought -- I _knew_ any side opposing Captain America was the wrong one. But our weapons were loaded with specialized rounds; Our directive was to bring him, and the child, in alive."

Steve's fingers tighten on the straps of his shield, sickened with himself.  

 _"I don't think that little girl's a danger to anyone,"_  he had told Bucky only yesterday.

_"Guess you've never heard of the Red Room."_

He had been such a fool.

"Can you tell me where they took him?" Steve asks.

Coulson shakes his head. "We weren't given specifics -- just that he was a rogue operative with enhanced strength and speed. Although I heard some of the officers talking about prepping a site in D.C."

So HYDRA had a base in the heart of the U.S.

"The operative. Who is he really?" Coulson asks.

Steve glances at Tony, who still looks absorbed in the electronics. The guts of the device is full of wires and small circuits. Steve can't make heads or tails out of it. The boy nudges a couple of the wires out of the way with the edge of a small screwdriver, and doesn't seem to be paying attention to them. Besides, considering Coulson put his life on the line, Steve owes him an answer.

"He's James Barnes." Steve takes in Coulson's look of shock and adds, "I guess you can say the Howling Commandos are hard to kill."

Coulson makes a noise in the back of his throat and closes his eyes. "I shot Bucky Barnes," he mutters in a low, mortified tone. "His name is first on the memorial in Shield Headquarters, and I _shot_ him."

Steve gives what he hopes is a sympathetic look. Then he glances at the boy. "How are you doing, Tony?"

"This is really, really complex," he replies, distracted. "If I clip the wrong wire, he's gonna explode."

Steve has to clench his fist to keep from yanking the boy away and safe behind his shield. "Do not clip anything. I thought you were going to... jam a frequency."

"Nope. That will just detonate it faster. Look." He flicks a small bundle of wires that mean nothing to Steve, then returns to what he's doing.

"Captain," Coulson says. His cheeks have gone pale. "If I don't make it out -- my mother works for SHIELD, too. Same last name. Don't tell her I died while helping a HYDRA operation. Please."

"You can tell her yourself," Steve says.

Coulson checks his watch. "Two minutes, seven seconds."

"Tony," Steve says.

"I'm working on it!" Tony snaps. "I need just a little more time."

Steve rests his hand on Tony's shoulder, feeling tension thrum through his small body. He looks at Coulson, who has his eyes glued to his watch. Tony mutters to himself in what sounds like Russian, tracing one of the circuits with his index finger; clearly trying to work something out.

"One minute," Coulson rasps.

He said he'd pull Tony by now. "Tony--"

"I almost got it! I'm almost there!"

Steve can't risk it. He's going to have to pull the boy away. He catches Coulson's eye, an apology on the tip of his tongue.

He misses the instant where Tony exchanges his small screwdriver for a clipper; glancing down in time only to see the boy snip a wire.

There's a gear-grinding noise as the device unlocks from around Coulson's arm.

"That's it! That's it!" Tony yells, jumping back. "Take it off!"

Steve doesn't wait another moment. He snatches the device from Coulson even as it's uncoiling. Then, leaning back, he throws it as high and as hard as he can.

And even though there's still forty-five seconds on Coulson's watch, the bomb only just clears the top of the junked car tower when it explodes. All around the city, more small explosions echo the noise: Other agents who had run off, or who hadn't reported in.

"Oh," Coulson says. "I had less time than I thought."

Then he sits down. Hard.

"Wow." Tony watches the flaming pieces of the bomb fall around them, his head tilted, a glint in his eye.

Steve's suddenly reminded of the many times Howard blew up his lab. It got to the point where they had a MP on duty holding a fire extinguisher.

"Let's not tell Bucky about this, when he comes back," Steve says to Tony.

The boy looks up at him. "Does that mean my real last name is Barnes?" He must misread Steve's pole-axed expression because he explains, "We used a lot of last names, 'cause we were always hiding from the bad people. You said they were HYDRA? Like in the comics?"

Luckily, Steve's saved from explaining by Coulson, who had been having a minor panic attack, his head between his knees.  The agent visibly pulls himself together, and stands, collecting his shirt. "Thank you," he says to Tony.

But Tony shrugs a shoulder. "I saved your life, so you gotta help us."

"I would have anyway," Coulson says, another tiny smile ticking up the corner of his mouth. "I have red in my ledger. I have to wipe it out."

"I know where Washington D.C is. I saw it on a map, once," Tony says knowledgably, proving he had been actively listening while disarming the bomb. "It's in Maryland, north of Virginia. Is it hard to get there?"

Steve stomach sinks. HYDRA had wanted Tony, and taking him to D.C. was as good as delivering him into their hands. "I'm sorry, Tony. Agent Coulson and I are going to have to go at this alone."

Tony turns to him, shocked. "But you'll need my help with electronics and stuff! What if you need to break in somewhere?"

"Does... is there a neighbor you can trust? A friend you can stay with?" he asks hopefully, and receives a derisive stare. Then again, Bucky moved the boy around every few weeks at best. Not enough time to put down roots, or become identifiable in any one place. Bucky's sister is still alive, though she's in her late fifties. "How about your aunt, Becca?"

He stomps his foot. "No! I can help."

Coulson looks between Steve and Tony for a moment, then clears his throat. "I know of a few SHIELD sanctioned entry points in and out of Mexico, but it'll still take a few days to cross the border, at best."

"I know a train line that can take us to Juarez. It's close to El Paso, in Texas. Me an' Dad rode it once, last year." Tony throws a look of challenge at Steve as if to say, ' _See, I am useful_ '.

Coulson tilts his head. "Can you speak English?"

"No, but I know Spanish and Russian and some Portuguese. I can learn English, easy."

Steve lets out a breath, wishing Coulson would stop encouraging him. He kneels down to Tony's level. "Tony, I promised your dad I would keep you safe. HYDRA wants you as much as they wanted him." He touches Tony's shoulder. "You'd be a very valuable asset to them, and I can't chance--"

"No, it's not fair!" Tony slaps Steve's arm away. "It's your fault he's gone!"

"It's not--" Coulson starts.

"Yes it is! He's stupid, and he ruins everything!" Tony turns back to Steve, his face screwing up in anger. "You're supposed to be Captain America, but you led the bad people to us."

"Tony," he said, not because he disagrees, but because the boy is getting loud.

"I hate you! " Tony snaps. An angry tear runs down one cheek, and his hands clench into fists. "You... you shoulda been the one who got shot and left behind, not Dad!"

He turns and runs off, and Steve doesn't have the heart to go after him. He knows what it's like to be told you're too little to help.

"He's just upset, sir," Coulson says.

"He didn't say anything that wasn't true," Steve said quietly, aching down to his bones. Tony might very well be an orphan twice over, and it's all square on Steve's shoulders.

Besides, Tony hasn't gone far. He can hear him just around the tower of cars, crying and probably trying to hide it. Steve decides he will give him a few minutes to calm down.

The look Coulson gives him is a little sad. Steve straightens his back, feeling the weight of responsibly fall heavy on him. Not only for Tony and for Bucky, but for the junior agent as well; a man who just put his life on the line based on the strength of his faith in Steve.  

He nods to Coulson. "Tell me what you know of the entry points at the border."


	11. Bucky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the long wait, guys! Time flies so fast. Hopefully people are still interested in this fic?
> 
> Also, **Trigger Warning** for intended suicide. (Bucky would rather die than fall back into HYDRA's hands. Can you blame him?)

One of the many indignities HYDRA had put Bucky through was to remove his second top molar on the right side, and replace it with a false, hollow tooth. The original plan was for him to become an enhanced agent, able to think and act on his own. Only after Bucky spent months fighting their conditioning was that plan discarded in favor of the complete mind-wipe.

Bucky still has the hollowed tooth. And the day after Steve first found him and Tony, he bought two concentrated cyanide pills. The first went in the tooth, the second under a fingernail in his metal hand.

If the worst came, he would never allow himself to be taken back. Nor would he allow HYDRA to take Tony, to _use_ Tony as Bucky had been used.

Thank heavens Steve is here to take Tony. Bucky won't have to use the second pill.

He hears Steve pick up the still protesting boy, but doesn't give either of them more than the barest glance. Doesn't want the last thing for Tony to remember him by with fear in his eyes. Besides, Steve can read Bucky too well. He'll take one look and know that he doesn't intend to see this out. Then he'll be a stubborn bastard and refuse to leave, and that'll doom them all.

So Bucky keeps his head averted, as if he's busy sighting down his gun. His breaths come in and out with a wheeze, thanks to the neurotoxin-soaked bullets. It doesn't hurt, though, not as much as it should. They were meant to slow him down, not kill him.

The flat of his tongue rests against the tooth. When the moment comes to release the cyanide pill and bite down, it'll be quick. Probably not painless, but quick. It's better than he deserves.

Bucky sights down his gun, and, after counting down from five, pulls the trigger to fire at the approaching HYDRA agents. Keep their attention on himself.

He'll make sure every agent's eye is on him and not on Steve and his son as they make their escape out the back.

Bucky aims, shoots.

He had been only casually religious before the war, and being in Zola's lab the first time around cured him of it. He knows there's nothing waiting for him on the other side. He's not gonna be looking down from above (or below) and see the brilliant man Tony will grow up to be.

Bucky still wishes he could have seen Tony through his teenage years, been proud as Tony excelled at whatever he chose in life, fell in love, maybe started a family of his own.

Bucky aims, shoots.

It's harder now he's had a taste of the life he and Steve could have built together. There would have been no picket fences, neither one would have been off to a nine-to-five while the other stayed home to keep the house and watch Tony when he came home from school. But they would of worked something out. They would have been happy together. Bucky wanted to wake up to Steve in the mornings.

Bucky aims, shoots.

Whatever else happens, he knows Steve will raise Tony right. Steve will probably spill the beans in a week, tell Tony what happened to Howard and Maria. And maybe Tony will grow up hating Bucky for turning his life upside-down, and that's... well. As long as he's alive, Bucky's got no room to complain.

Bucky aims, shoots.

From the stilted, faltering way the agents rush into the warehouse, he suspects few are voluntary. A competent HYDRA agent, someone truly loyal to their insane cause, is a rare commodity. There was reason why they were going through all this trouble to reacquire the Winter Soldier.

Bucky knows most of the men he's shooting are probably being coerced. It's a shame, but not one that makes him hesitate.

Bucky aims, shoots.

And even though he's ready... he still doesn't want to die. Not really. His tongue rests against the hollow tooth, ready to knock it free and get at the pill inside. He could -- probably should -- do it now, but every second he can give Steve and Tony is a better chance they have to get to safety.

Bucky aims, shoots.

He doesn't know when the agents plant the explosions, or how they got under his guard -- maybe there was a door he didn't see in the back.

The explosion takes him wholly by surprise, blossoming up from the first level of the warehouse and obliterating the supports under his feet. The concussion blows out his eardrums, narrowing the world into a high-pitched whine.

It's so sudden-- white and red flashes in front of his eyes-- and his stomach lurches as he falls, feels himself hit ground as if from far away.

He's confused. There's something he needs to do -- it's important, and he can't remember... 

Someone grabs his arms, pushes him onto his stomach. A thin spike of pain enters the side of his neck. Then there's nothing.

 

* * *

 

Bucky awakes, cold. He's sitting up. His shirt is off, a fine row of stitching on his stomach to show he's been under surgery.  He can't move. There are two thick metal clamps -- one over each arm -- holding him in place, a rig over his head. He's in a chair. No-- _the_ chair.

He's... not proud of the next few minutes. Screaming and thrashing as much as the restraints would let him, his reason utterly swallowed by pure animal panic. It doesn't matter. This chair has been more than enough in the past to keep the Soldier contained when he had been unstable. Bucky is no match.

Ever since he'd recovered his memories, he'd had nightmares about being back in the chair. They were going to wipe him again, strip him out of his own mind, replace him with the Soldier...

The men and women in lab uniforms around him do no more than glance at his way, and offer no other acknowledgement. Part of it is psychological-- showing he's of no more interest than any other loud lab animal. Part of it is fear.

Bucky doesn't calm as much as he tires out. Panting, he gets hold of the rains on his sanity, and starts noticing immediate details again. The walls in the small room him are thick and glitter metallically under the florescent lights. Not a warehouse or a basement. Is he in a vault of some kind?

He can't find a familiar face among the techs. They have the same equipment as before, but these are not the same people. They're murmuring to each other in English with American and British accents, not German or Russian. A whole different team, then, though he has no doubt they're still HYDRA.

His left arm won't respond to any command -- he can't wiggle a finger. There's a metal blinking button attached to his shoulder and he suspects they've disabled it.

Most of the screens over his head are incomprehensible, though at a glance he guesses they are comparing the Winter Soldier's previous vitals to his current readings. Preparing for refurbishment. Across the room, an armed man stands at attention, rifle to his side. Bucky eyes him, but doubts the man can be goaded into shooting him.

His tongue probes for the hollow tooth, but there's only a newly healed gap there, now. 

The techs are working quietly, but the room still seems to hush further as a man walks in. He looks... well, a little like Steve. Older, certainly, and without the serum's peak of physical fitness, but his wheat-blonde hair is similar, as are the blue of his eyes. He's in a fine cut suit, his overcoat thrown over one arm.

The man glances at the doctors and strides across the room like he owns it. He is the one in charge, then.

Bucky's heart is jack-hammering in his chest and surely it's reflected in the overhead screens. But he leans back in his chair and makes himself affect a smirk as he says, "And who might you be, handsome?"

The man sizes him up, then hands his overcoat to a nearby aide.

"I'm Alexander Pierce, your new handler."

"What happened to..." Bucky has to search for the name. "Dr. Luka?"

Pierce is too disciplined to shrug, but the slight tilt of his head has the same effect. "He held a Fabergé egg in his hands and sent it to run grocery errands." His gaze never leaves Bucky's face, and the look in his eyes is more than assessing. Covetous. His voice takes on the crisp bite of a commander. "You failed to complete your last mission. Report status."

Maybe it's the familiar lab smells, the grip of restraints over his arms. Something cold and familiar stirs in the back of Bucky's mind. Swallowing, he looks away from Pierce's gaze.

"Report, Soldier," Pierce repeats.

He hates the part of him that wants-- _needs_ \--to reply. Bucky licks his lips, but he can't keep silent. This has been all engrained in him for decades. "Go to hell," he says. "End of report."

Pierce backhands him.

The force of it whips Bucky's head to the side, and he lets out a startled laugh. He didn't expect to get smacked around so quickly.

"Report," Pierce says again.

Then Pierce speaks some code words, and Bucky feels the ghost of the Winter Soldier perk up in the back of his mind. He tongues his cut lip. The sting of it clears his head a little, and his flesh hand clenches as he thinks of Tony and Steve -- holds them in front of his mind until the urge to obey recedes.

He's played this game before, years before Pierce was born, when HYDRA tried to break him the first time. Bucky had held out for months, had spit back everything they threw at them with varying degrees of success, even after Steve went down into the sea.

In the end, they'd simply wiped his mind clean and started with a blank slate.

"Son," Bucky says, looking at Pierce, "if you think spitting codes at me does any good, we're gonna be here a long time."

He expects to be hit again, but Pierce doesn't move. He doesn't even seem angry, which is a little unusual. His handlers before had been egomaniacs. A little too easy to wind up. 

Instead, Pierce nods once as if Bucky has confirmed something he already knew, and leans back.

"Your mission was to eliminate the entire Stark Family, but instead you took the boy." He pauses as if to gauge Bucky's reaction. "Was it because you sensed his potential for our cause--"

Bucky lunges for Pierce so hard and quick that the metal restraints around his arms groan, some of the equipment shivers overhead.

Pierce doesn't flinch.

"Don't you touch him," Bucky growls.

"There's something to be said for the Red Room's practices," Pierce says, as if considering it for the first time. He's found Bucky's vulnerable spot and is twisting the knife. Bucky _knows_ this, but it doesn't stop the swell of fear and rage as Pierce continues, "Children are so malleable when they're young. And the son of Howard Stark... well. He wasn't useful to us as a toddler, but he's had years of training under you, hasn't he?"

"You ain't touching him," Bucky repeats. "You'd have to go through Captain America first, and your band of merry idiots couldn't manage it back in the war. You can't now."

Pierce leans back, a slight smile on his face. "That's where you're wrong. HYDRA has accomplished much with the Winter Soldier. You've served nearly forty years, helped topple regimes, put us where we are today--more powerful than ever. Cut off one head," he quotes, then looks over his shoulder to the techs, and Bucky knows, _he knows_ the next words are going to be an order to engage the machine. Burn all Bucky's memories out and reset him back to zero.

And maybe his new mission will be to eliminate Steve --  retrieve Tony for HYDRA conditioning.  Or maybe Pierce is just winding him up, and he has other plans for the Winter Soldier. But sure as anything, the Soldier and Steve Rogers would someday cross paths again.

And Bucky would look at Steve -- look at his son standing by Steve's side, and recognize nothing.

"You wanna know what happened?" Bucky blurts. Desperate. "You know why I failed the mission? I recognized Howard." He's talking out his ass. He hadn't known Howard Stark from Adam, even when the man had called Bucky by his name. But Sarah Rogers -- God rest her soul -- always said Bucky could sell snow to an Eskimo. Bucky wasn't the kid Mrs. Rogers knew anymore, but he called up tatters of him now, and sold his lie with every ounce of belief he had. "Maybe resetting me will work for a little bit, but something's gonna give, and I'm going to remember who I am again." He grinned, showing teeth. "And when I do, I'm coming for _you_ , pal.  You're on my personal list, now. I've been killing people since before you were born -- you're going to think you got the Soldier on a leash again, but it'll be me, and you won't see me coming."

A man like Pierce wouldn't have climbed so high in the ranks being intimidated so easily, and to his credit Pierce doesn't even blink. But he does do that head-tilt again. "You know, you're right. The analysts do state the wipes were becoming less effective as time went on."  If they were true, Bucky sure as hell never noticed. Before he can say anything, Pierce continues, "There's a reason for that."

He knows it's a mistake to play along, but it's a compulsion he can't ignore. "Yeah? What's that?"

Pierce raises his eyebrows, as if surprised Bucky's not quick on the uptake. "They weren't meant for your physiology." He takes a step closer. "HYDRA meant to capture Captain America--it's the whole reason we sent out Dr. Zola as bait. We settled for his lieutenant." He flicks a hand around, "A less than perfect match. We had to approximate for what Erskine had already built into the new serum."

"What?"

"The good doctor knew the Allies could not afford another Red Skull, should things go wrong again. So he built in a kill switch."

"A wipe," Bucky rasps.

Pierce leans down, eye-level with Bucky. "Thank you," he says sincerely. "Your forty years of service have helped us return to power, and now you're going to give us one last gift. You said the Stark boy is with Captain America? Rogers won't leave his best friend behind. He'll come for you. He's a man out of time -- he can't run forever."

A thrill of cold fear shoots to Bucky's toes. He had told them Tony was with Steve, hadn't he? He should have just kept his damn mouth shut.

"You're wrong," Bucky says, but he suspects its true.

"I couldn't touch him while he was under Fury's command, but now Steve Rogers has been declared a deserter. I have the full might of SHIELD looking for him. And when we find him, HYDRA will finally have our perfect asset." A pause. "You may want to reconsider your loyalties towards our cause, Sergeant Barnes, if you want to keep Anthony Stark safe... We have an excellent benefits program."

Pierce glances aside at his men. "Put him on ice. Make sure it's recorded."

This was the reason Pierce bothered getting under his skin. They wanted him to look upset. Better bait for Steve.

He looks around wildly until he spies the man with the camera. He looks straight into it. "Don't you dare come for me, Steve. Take Tony and run--" He never sees the signal Pierce must give to the techs. Electric fire sizzles through his body. Bucky arches and screams. It's not the pain of the mind wipe -- they'd never planned to put him through that at all. This is punitive. The electricity arcs through his entire body, a burning fire that locks all his muscles. He can't breathe after the first scream, can only jerk and writhe, knowing the camera is filming every second.

Finally, _finally_ , it ends. He slumps, boneless and hazy in pain. His mind is a fog as people rush around him. He's not sure how they get him to the freezer, but he comes back to his senses long enough to catch one man by the throat with his flesh-hand. It's not Pierce. But the unlucky tech's eyes bulge as Bucky squeezes. Something crunches, and the tech collapses.

Then he's shoved backwards, shoulders hitting a metal wall that's already so freezing cold it feels hot. A metal door is slammed shut to seal him in.

He's been through this before, too. Bucky inhales a breath of sharp, bitterly cold air, knowing he has only seconds.

 _For the love of Pete, do the smart thing, Steve. Take Tony and run_ , he prays. Because Pierce was right... if HYDRA got their mitts on his son, there wasn't anything Bucky wouldn't agree to do to keep him safe.

A valve hisses as it opens overhead, sending clouds of freezing gas billowing down to fill the small chamber. Frost prickles at Bucky's skin, and he holds the image of Steve and Tony firm in his mind as a talisman as he's flash frozen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pierce's mention of the "benefit program" comes from an Agent of SHIELD eppie where some third-party HYDRA group held people's loved ones as hostages to ensure their loyalty. They called it the benefit program.


	12. Chapter 12

Sometimes Tony has the car dreams. He hates those the very most.

In them, he's sitting strapped in a car seat like a baby, even though he's _not_. His arm burns where Father had pinched him because Tony hadn't done his addition problems right that morning -- which never made sense because Dad _never_ hurt him, never raised his voice-- even that one time Tony had switched out the heating coils in the oven for better ones and smoke poured out everywhere. Firemen came and they had to move again that night in the dark.

But in the dream, Tony's arm hurts and he's hungry because he'd rushed through the math, and gotten it wrong.

 _Don't whine at me, boy._ An angry, unfamiliar voice echoes through time and space. _Jarvis, take away those waffles. He can go without, today..._

The dream ends with a woman, probably his mommy, screaming his name, and the car is rolling and rolling around them, and it won't stop, and...

It never makes sense, and when Tony tries to think about it too hard when he's awake, his head starts to hurt.

But tonight, the bad dream is different. Tony's back in the warehouse. Dad's there, and he's fighting bad guys, but his metal arm's dead by his side. And Tony realizes it's because he's missing a screw. A screw that's in Tony's pocket, and Tony opens his mouth to yell out to him, but Captain America's dragging him away. And his father's fighting a losing battle with one dead arm, and it's all Tony's fault... all his fault...

Tony jerks awake.

The first thing he's aware of is the slight rhythmic sway under his body, and he can hear a distant clack, click-clack wheels on tracks. He's still on a train.

His hand flies to his pocket, but it's empty. There's no missing screw. It was a... what's the word? Metaphor. His stupid mind made up that part of the dream, but not all of it, because his dad is gone for real. Captured by the Bad HYDRA Men.

 _I shouldn't have left him_ , Tony thinks for the probably the millionth time in three days. _I shouldn't have let Captain America take me away._

Tony could have stayed behind. Could have been helpful. What if Dad's arm had malfunctioned for real? Who would have been there to fix it?  Tony could have helped -- he was almost eight-years-old. He could shoot a gun, would have shot _all_ the bad HYDRA men.

But then if he had stayed behind, Agent Coulson probably would have gotten blown up.

A wave of sick loneliness floods through him, making hot pricks start behind his eyes. Tony doesn't want to cry, and scrubs angrily at his face.

He feels a touch on his shoulder.

"You okay, Champ?"

It's Captain America's voice. There's a warm weight over Tony's shoulders, probably the Captain's stupid jacket, thrown over him while he slept.

Tony ignores him, just angrily wriggles his shoulder free. The weight of Captain America's hand leaves, and the spot feels cold. He doesn't care.

There's no use to getting back to sleep, so Tony sits up, rubbing at his eyes. To his disappointment, he sees Coulson's still napping on the seat across from his. That means there's no one for Tony to talk to because he is _NOT_ talking to Captain America.

The problem is the Captain must be really, really stupid because even though Tony has made it clear he's getting the silent treatment, he hasn't figured it out.

"I heard an announcement they're serving breakfast in the dining car," Captain America says cheerfully. "What do you say we grab a bite?"

Tony ignores him and turns to stare out the window. He can't help but think of buttered toast and eggs sunny-side up, though. His stomach gives a growl.

"Thought so." The Captain rises from his seat, and tugs Tony under the arm to get him to do the same. For a moment Tony considers sitting there and _make_ the Captain take him out. But... that might wake Coulson, and Tony is hungry.

So, with a long sigh he follows the Captain of their train car.

One of the things Tony hates the most about the man is how he doesn't blend in anywhere. He's tall, with blonde hair that looks different from the rest of the train's population. Even Tony, who's not Mexican, gets away with his brown hair and eyes. The Captain looks and acts like a gringo, and from the looks people throw at him as he passes, everyone knows it.

Tony, who's spent all of his life hiding with his father, feels terribly exposed.

The dining cart is small, and the smell of cooking eggs and bacon makes Tony's mouth water. There is a group of people clustered around the table with cooked food, so Tony automatically makes his way to the other side of the room. To the table piled high with apples, oranges, and dates.

Quickly, before anyone thinks to look, Tony snags a bright red apple and jams it into his pocket.

He doesn't expect Captain America's hand back on his shoulder, or the frown in the man's voice when he says, "Tony, we still need to pay for that."

Tony gives him a blank look. Pay? Is he kidding?

But the Captain's no-nonsense voice had attracted a couple glances from others in the room. To avoid making a scene, Tony fishes out the apple, and fuming, hands it back.

Five minutes later, they're walking back to their car with three paid-for plates, and Tony is so angry he ignores the fact he's determined never to speak to the man again.

"What did you do that for?" he demands, soon as the door to the car is shut.

Captain America frowns down at him. "Excuse me?"

"No one knew I had the apple, 'till you went and blabbed!"

"That's stealing, Tony," Captain America says, repressively. "It's wrong."

Tony ignores this, because Captain America clearly doesn't know anything. "And you paid for the train tickets, too. For all three of us! Now you only have one-hundred and ninety-five left. At this rate, we'll run out of money before we hit the boarder."

He sees the Captain's eyebrows raise -- he probably didn't know Tony had gone though his things. "Let me worry about the money. Why don't you eat your toast--"

"You don't understand!" Tony throws a look at Coulson, who'd come awake at the smell of breakfast. The young Agent blinks back, a little fuzzily at him. "America is really big, and we're going to have to pay people to give us information where Dad is, and we can't do that if you keep spending on stupid things like apples--"

"Even if money was a concern, the solution isn't to take from less fortunate," Captain America says. "I would have thought Bucky taught you better than that."

That is so stupid, Tony almost laughs -- only, for some reason he's close to tears again from frustration. "We don't steal from poor people! 'sides, what do you think the train operator's are going to do with all the extra food? They'll throw it away. Restaurants and places always have lots of extras, and you might as well get it fresh before you have to fight someone else for it out of a dumpster." He and his dad hadn't had to do that often, but those few times they had showed Tony that the other way was way better.

Captain America throws Coulson a look that Tony can't read. Coulson straitens up and says, "Once we get on American soil, we can access my bank account. Money won't be a problem."

"Yeah?" Tony demands, wishing the adults had told this earlier. How can he figure the calculations if people keep important parts of the equation to themselves? "How much is in there?"

"I'm... not sure," Coulson says carefully. "I had my SHIELD stipend directly deposited.

"Well, tell me how much you got per month," Tony says impatiently. "Then we'll just subtract your average monthly expenses, and account for average interest. Do you have it compounded annually?"

"Tony," Captain America looks pained. Or maybe constipated. Tony can't tell. "How about you eat your breakfast before it gets cold?"

"Then we'll work on your English," Coulson says. "I thought you wanted to be fluent by the time we reach the border."

"English is a dumb language," Tony says, in English. He thinks his accent isn't that bad, but Captain America's looking pained all over again. Tony wished either one of them spoke Russian. That was a more interesting language, by far. 

Captain America rises suddenly, even without finishing his own breakfast. "I'm going to take a walk, get a lay of the land," he says, and adds something in English to Coulson that Tony can't quite catch -- okay, so he does have some work to do -- then heads out.

Tony's glad to see him go.

 

 

***

 

 

Steve manages to keep his game face on until he's two cars down. Then, when he's certain Coulson or Tony haven't followed him, he sits down on an empty bench seat and puts his head in his hands.

Bucky had told him that Tony was smart. He'd had seen evidence in the apartment, and he's picking up English nearly as fast as Coulson can teach it to him. Not only that, but the boy's able to do math in his head that would take Steve an abacus or three to complete, not to just show off, but in his head on a regular basis. He's more than just smart -- Bucky was right. He ought to be in a special school or something for child genius'.

Sometimes, when Tony smiles or (more recently, scowls) Steve can see traces of Bucky in his expressions. The kid has picked up his ticks and mannerisms -- even though they don't share a drop of blood.

And the boy apparently has no qualms at all about stealing. Something he's learned at Bucky's side.

Steve misses Bucky with an ache that he can't think to hard about, or he won't be able to function. But at that moment he sort of wants to punch him, to demand what the hell he'd been thinking.

He remembers what Tony asked the other day. _"Does that mean my real last name is Barnes? We used a lot of last names, 'cause we were always hiding from the bad people."_

Later, once they are settled, he is going to have to tell Tony the full truth of his past.

Steve isn't sure he's the man for this. He can't be responsible for the health and happiness of a child. (Of _Bucky's_ child.) It's too big, and every time Tony mimics something Bucky would have done, Steve's heart breaks a little. Besides, if Bucky had been living on the edge, how can Steve do any better?

He's always been just a kid from Brooklyn. He didn't even have siblings to grow up with. He has no idea what he's doing. He's not prepared for this.

At least Tony was speaking to him again -- Steve knew he would come around -- but how he was going to keep Tony out of trouble while he went searching for Bucky is anyone's guess. The boy is... precocious. Every bit the stubborn boy Bucky was, sharpened with Howard's intelligence.

Steve forces himself to take a deep breath, then lets it out again.  

Well, he supposes he does have one idea. Peggy had told him to bring Tony by, hadn't she?

 

***

 

The train stops at Juarez the next morning. By then, Steve was more than happy to disembark, Tony in tow.

This was Coulson's area, and Steve lets take the lead. The official border crossing is about ten miles out of town, already choked with early morning traffic.

Coulson leads them five miles past that, to a wayside dusty inn. The men stationed there were clearly SHIELD agents, and Steve keeps a grip on the artist bag that conceals his shield just in case. But Coulson knows the proper pass-codes to let them past the gate.

Tony, surprisingly, keeps quiet at Steve's side, his dark eyes watchful. He's so quiet he's almost reserved, fading into the background in a way that had to have been taught.   

A couple agents throw Steve a suspicious look, and he ends up name-dropping Peggy. They relax slightly. One asks Tony why he was there in Spanish, and to their relief he replies in English that he was going to see his Father.

Coulson had coached him on the phrasing, and he'd picked up Steve's voicing a little. It was his idea to emphasize the New York accent, which Steve provided. The shy way he ducked slightly behind Steve, as if he was a protector, helped too.

The act was a good one. The SHIELD agent's suspicions eased. It helped that Coulson had a manner about him that Steve was impressed with. He was young, but he was professional and competent in a way that made him seem much older.

They were given a car, and passage across.

 

***

 

Steve dropped three quarters into the payphone -- long distance was outrageous, but needs were a must -- and dialed the number he'd memorized.

A male voice picked up on the third ring. "Souza-Carter residence."

"May I speak with Peggy?"

There was a pause, and the man, Peggy's husband said, "This is Steve Rogers, isn't it? She said you would call."

"It is."

He let a long breath. "Well, I'm sorry to tell you, Peggy's been in a car accident."

Steve clutched the receiver. "What? Is she all right?"

"I'm afraid it's serious. She's in Kennedy National hospital. I just stopped in for a moment to gather our clothes," he said, and his voice sounded so tired. "If you could stop by, I know she'd be damn glad to see you."

 

***

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
